Sparkle: The Queerest Book You'll Ever Love (8 page)

“Well, fuck ‘em,” I tossed in, trying to cut through the tension. Besides, it seemed to be the answer of the day.

“Exactly, Secret. Fuck ‘em. And, anyway, my dear brother was kind enough to provide us with what I’m sure will be a fine lunch. Let’s just see what we have here,” he said as he walked over to the refrigerator.

He opened the door, and, as he had predicted, it was full of meats, cheeses, fruits, and juices. The cabinets were full of equally fabulous things: crackers, spreads, cereals, breads, canned items, and, most importantly, wines. My stomach was doing back flips, as, by that time, I was ravenous.

“It would appear that my brother has outdone himself,” Sparkle commented, with obvious traces of derision in his voice. I sensed that there was no love lost between the two of them. “So, what’ll it be, Secret, turkey on white or ham and cheese on rye?”

“Yes, please,” I answered, hungrier than Karen Carpenter on a liquid die, before adding, “Sparkle, can I ask you a question?” he shrugged as he went about preparing our lunch. “Now, you can tell me to fuck off if this is too personal or anything, but I get the distinct impression that you care just a little bit more than you’re letting on that your family didn’t let you know that they were in town this week.”

“That wasn’t a question, Secret; that was a statement. And, yes, fuck off.”

“Well, fine then; we won’t talk about it. I just thought you might like to get it off your chest or something. But if you don’t want to talk about it, we won’t talk about…”

“Okay then, let’s stop talking about it,” Sparkle interrupted. Obviously, I’d hit on a touchy subject.

“What would you like to talk about then?” I asked him.

“Whatever. Just not that, okay?” He looked at me, and I could tell that he meant business. Besides, he had a massive kitchen knife in his hand, which he waved around, menacingly. I could just see the headlines:
gay virgin hacked to death in Marin cottage
. Not the way I wanted to go. Especially the virgin part.

“Fine then… um… let’s see… what to talk about?…”

“Secret, what was your major in college?” Sparkle stopped cutting the meat. I think he was starting to get a bit angry with me by that point.

“Um, English Lit. Why?”

“And you can’t think of anything to talk about except why I don’t get along with my parents?” He started preparing our lunches again and was shaking his head.

“Dickhead,” I said, under my breath.

“What was that?”

“Huh? Nothing. Hey, Sparkle, did you ever notice that there are girls named April, May, and June, but never July?” He stopped putting the lettuce on the sandwich for a second to contemplate that. “And, Sparkle, did you ever notice that there are girls named October and December, but never November? Why do you suppose that is?” Again, he stopped for a second before putting on the tomatoes. “And then there are girls named Summer and Autumn, but not Spring, and only rarely Winter.”

Then he put the knife down, propped his hands on the counter top, looked me deep in the eyes and said, “You win, Secret, I’ll tell you why I don’t get along with my parents if you’ll stop with the Jerry Seinfeld routine. Deal?”

I merely nodded in the affirmative and told him to finish with the sandwiches first. (Score one in the plus column for yours truly, by the way.)

***

Five minutes later, with plates in hand, we made it into the living room. Sparkle ran back to the kitchen for napkins, silverware, and, thank goodness, a full bottle of red wine. I began eating half the sandwich and drinking a full glass of wine before even two words were said.

“Ready,” I announced as I poured my second glass of wine.

“Sure?” he asked, still on his first glass and only two bites into his sandwich. “I can wait for piggy to finish his meal.”

“Nope, you may proceed.” I motioned for him to start with a grand flourish of my hand and a bowing of my head. It’s amazing how doing gay things like that comes naturally. How many straight men talk like that I wonder? I mean, did you ever hear a conversation between two gay men and realize that only gay men could ever have that exact same conversation? Case in point: I was with Kiki the other day at Home Depot (or as we like to call it, Homo Depot) and we were arguing about which color to paint his bathroom. Kiki wanted robin’s egg blue and I was arguing for a mix of powder blue with a touch of vermilion. Now, you tell me, could you ever, in your wildest dreams, hear two straight guys having that same conversation? They would just say
blue
and leave it at that. What a drab life they must lead. But I digress. Where were we? Oh, yes…

He nodded and began. “I already told you, Secret, that my parents were almost never around and that they left me in the care of the house staff. Well, honestly, that really wasn’t so horrible. I mean, it was the only life I ever knew. Lance, my brother, and I were only a year apart and, even though I was older, we were about the same size and liked pretty much the same things growing up. When school was in and my parents weren’t home, the house staff did all the same things any parent would do, raising both of us to be fairly normal boys. And that’s pretty much how it went until we got too old for looking after, when Lance and I took divergent paths.”

Sparkle stopped to catch his breath, finished his first glass of wine, took a couple of bites of his sandwich, poured us both some more, and continued. “By the time I was sixteen and Lance was fifteen, our interests were suddenly nothing alike. Lance was playing J.V. football, basketball, and running track. I, on the other hand, was into more ethereal pursuits such as drama and reading. My one and only athletic ability lay in swimming. Not team swimming, mind you, but swimming in our pool at home. Lance could never beat me at that, you see. As he bulked up and I lithed down, I would out-swim him in distance and in speed, time and time again. He hated me for that, Secret, really hated me. I mean, he couldn’t care less that I wasn’t into any of the activities that he was into, but the fact that I was better than him at even just one sports-related thing really ate him up inside.

“So, in order to get out of racing my brother and inevitably making him angry with me, I stopped going home after school and started going to the library instead. After a few weeks of this, I noticed another boy reading there almost every day, too. He looked a bit older than me, was a few inches taller, blond hair and blue eyes. Not what I would call a real looker, but cute enough. And I was only sixteen and really didn’t have the experience with cruising that I do today. But still, when he’d look up from his book and see me staring at him, one of us would nod or smile or something, and I knew, just knew, that this was more than mere politeness.”

“Bourgeoning gaydar,” I tossed in, knowing it quite well.

Sparkle nodded, refilled our glasses, and finished his sandwich. Mine was long gone by then, and I’d already gone to the kitchen, fixed another one, and was back in time for the juicy parts. “Then, one afternoon, instead of reading in the library, I decided to read on the lawn by the playground. It was a beautiful spring day, really warm, so I took off my shirt, lied down on my back, and read my book. Sometime later, I had the strangest feeling that there was somebody else out there with me. So I put the book down and propped myself up on my elbows, and who should be standing there but my library buddy. Naturally, my heart started racing, but I remained cool and introduced myself. He did the same. Bradley was his name, and he had a book in his hand and said that he had the same idea as I had, to come outside and enjoy the weather. My guess, he was really coming to look for me. Still, whatever the reason, I was glad for his daring-do. I mean, I would probably never have been so brave.”

Sparkle sighed and closed his eyes for a second, obviously visualizing the scene in his head before continuing. If the gulp that followed meant anything, I was beginning to think that this story would not have much of a happy ending. “I asked him to sit down, to read with me. He politely accepted and also yanked off his t-shirt. That’s when I knew that he was probably older than me, because he had about a dozen fine blond hairs on his tight, little chest. At sixteen, you see, I was quite hairless. Today it’s an affectation, but back then it was just sweet youth.

“Anyway, Bradley got on his back, opened his book, and started reading. He was just inches away from me, and, for about ten minutes, neither one of us said a word. Suffice it to say, in all that time, I didn’t read a single word; I just kept turning the pages of my book every few minutes in order to appear like I was reading. I mean, I was terrified. Excited, yes, but terrified. Big time. Then he put his book down and turned sideways onto one arm and said that it was just too nice outside to read, and, besides, it was a crappy book. I agreed, put my book down, as well, and rolled over to face him, eye to eye, with butterflies whipping around inside my tummy. Then he asked me why I was all of a sudden always in the library after school, and I told him the truth. He told me that he was there because his mother didn’t get home until about five and she didn’t want him to be alone in the house. He chose to hang out in the library and read. He said he really didn’t mind, and I, for one, was glad for his circumstances.”

Sparkle again stopped to refill our glasses, but I’d barely been drinking by that point as I was intently paying attention to his story. This kind of stuff didn’t happen in Kansas when I was a kid. Of course, not many gay men get to sip wine in a remote cottage with a slice of heaven like Sparkle, either, so maybe my luck was changing.

In any case, he continued soon enough. “Then the conversation turned interesting. See, Bradley was looking at my torso and asked me if I had gotten my awesome body while swimming. I said that I guessed that was how I got it. Of course, I’d never really given it a thought before then, but it did make sense. Then, Secret, he did something that took me totally by surprise: he reached over and gently ran his hand over my stomach and chest, saying that he figured it was the swimming, too, seeing how hard my stomach was and how solid my chest was. I didn’t know about that, but I did know that both my stomach and chest were moving up and down really fast all of a sudden. Noticing my perplexity, he quickly took his hand away. Still, not wanting to miss my chance and, seeing that fair was fair, I reached over and ran my hand across
his
chest. I asked him when he started growing his chest hairs, but of course that was just a pretense. Then he told me that they started growing in the year before, when he was sixteen, and they were coming in pretty regularly now. I noticed that, while he was talking, his chest was also rising and falling pretty rapidly. Meaning, two teenage dudes, same boat. In any case, I let my hand linger a little while longer before removing it. Guess I’ve always been a bit brazen.”

He paused and chuckled. Brazen, of course, was a gross understatement. “Well, after that, we were both sort of at a loss for words. That’s when Bradley said that he needed to get going, that it was nice meeting me, and that he’d see me around. Then he turned to go….”

“Oh, God, no!” I screamed. “He didn’t just leave, did he?  Don’t tell me nothing else happened!”

“Jeez, Secret, like, duh, of course something happened or else this would be a pretty useless story, don’t you think?” He sighed and slapped my arm. “So, anyway, he turned to go, but before he even took two steps away, I called back to him and asked if instead of going to the library after school the next day, why not come home with me and hang out, and that the butler would drive him home later on. He turned to look at me, paused a moment, and then nodded his head, his smile big and bright and wide, those butterflies of mine making their triumphant return. Then he waved a farewell and walked away. My heart was racing and my head was spinning, as you can imagine, but damn if I didn’t just make my very first date.”

Sparkle sighed and caught his breath before picking up where he’d left off. Despite the joyfulness of the story, I could tell there was a pain there, something worming its way up. “Needless to say, I was a wreck that night and the whole next day, but I made it through, and the next afternoon I met up with Bradley at the library before we headed to my house. I told him that my parents were in Spain for the next two nights and that my brother was at football practice, and that the servants pretty much stayed on the first floor of the house. I was hoping that he was getting the hint that we’d be pretty much alone and that he could ravage me at will. Not that my suaveness was at a peak at the age of sixteen, but still.

“In any case, when we finally made it home, he was in awe of my house. Well, honestly, it was actually more of a mansion, but to me it was just
our house
. Anyway, Bradley was all wide eyes and gaping mouth from one end of the place to the other. He told me that his whole home could fit into just our basement. And that’s when I knew I had the upper hand.

 “I made sure to show him the backyard last,” he said, continuing ever onward, his face taking on a bittersweet quality to it, a poignancy I’d yet to see. “That’s where we kept the pool and the hot tub. And that’s when Bradley really went nuts. He’d been to homes with pools before, but never a hot tub.
Bingo
, I thought to myself. Then I told him that we should get in. Well, I could sense the instantaneous fear at that thought. I mean, there he was, poor boy, alone with a young harlot trying desperately hard to seduce him. Needless to say, he looked ready to run. I wasn’t about to let happen, of course, so I told him that I got in the thing all the time with my other friends, a bold-faced lie, by the way, and that it was no big deal. The logic of that seemed to sink in, because he brightened up and said that he’d love to go in, seeing as he’d never been in a hot tub before.

“Well, I started shucking off my clothes before he had a chance to change his mind, and I was naked and in the hot tub before he could even take his shoes off. That also gave me a distinct advantage, Secret. See, now I could look down at him as he got undressed. Which he then proceeded to do. He already had his shirt off and was taking off his shoes, while I got comfortable in the tub. Then he unbuckled his belt, looked up to see if I was watching, which of course I was, and then quickly took off his pants. Then he stopped and stood there in his white Jockeys and looked up at me again and asked if the water was warm yet. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a seventeen-year old boy in white skivvies before, but I could’ve sworn I was staring at an angel. An honest to goodness angel. I gulped as I told him that the water was perfect, willing him to hurry the fuck on up with it.