Between Boyfriends. Michael Salvatore
be thankful when Gus inevitably told Brady he had been canceled.
Luckily Lindsay has the comic timing of Ann B. Davis and was soon standing by my side, drink in hand, jabbering away about the details of his recent foray into the world of the sex party.
“I loved it!” Lindsay squealed. “I felt free, like a kid again.”
“You were in a sling, not a swing,” I corrected.
“You had your childhood playground,” he said, “I had mine.”
While ordering another round of drinks for us all, Lindsay announced that he had seen several familiar faces at the party, including an Academy Award Best Actor nominee who made his partners wear gold condoms so he could imagine he was being fucked with an Oscar.
“I assume he wanted to know what it’s like to be the former Mr. Hilary Swank,” Lindsay declared. “That lucky broad’s got his and hers Oscars. When they were married I bet they lay side by side to see who could take more of the phallic gold statuette.”
“Jodie Foster can do the same thing,” I reminded him.
“Do you really think Jodie does anything with her Oscars except stare at them and envy their slim, boyish hips?”
“Well, I’m sure many Academy Award winners have had sex with their Oscars. What about Barbra Streisand? She’s got two Oscars too,” I responded.
“Do not take the name of La Streisand in vain!”
“Bette Davis had two,” I said, feeling very knowledgeable in gay cinema all of a sudden. “And she was a wild one.”
“The Oscar reminded her of her uncle,” Lindsay reminded me. “Even she wasn’t kinky enough for that.”
“Oh, my God! Katharine Hepburn had four!” I shouted.
Lindsay’s face went white as the blood drained from his face and raced to his dick. “Just imagine the sex party possibilities,” he sighed.
Before I could imagine the endless possibilities of a group of horny, naked gay men and four Oscars, Flynn and Sebastian joined us at the bar.
“Hola, chicas!” Sebastian cried, then noticing Brady he added, “And chiquitas.”
It looked like Sebastian was going to make a Chiquita hawk comment, but a remix of a remix of a Madonna classic blasted through the airwaves and he declared it was time to get into the groove.
One Madonna remix led to an Amber remix, which led to another musical attempt by Dolly Parton to have a hit song post– “9 to 5,” and soon an hour had passed. My lungs begged my body to stop moving, so I grabbed the boys and we huddled at the end of the U-shaped bar, which was manned by a strapping, hairless man-boy in a boy-sized jockstrap, and ordered ourselves a round of cosmos. Before the first sip, Brady took control of the conversation and announced that he was attending graphic design school and was looking for opportunities to perfect his craft.
“Isn’t that what you’re doing with Gus?” I asked, allowing myself a moment of bitchiness.
“No!” Brady squealed. “I’m letting Gus perfect his craft at being the perfect top with me!”
It sucks when your own bitchiness comes back to bitch-slap you in your face. The boys all saluted Gus’s quest for perfection and I felt like Dolly reading the latest, unkind Billboard charts.
“Maybe Brady can design the invitations for my upcoming birthday bash,” Gus suggested.
“We’re not throwing you a birthday bash!” Lindsay protested.
“You, Lindsay Wilde, are a gay liar,” Gus said. “And you know what happens to gay liars?”
“They grow up to become Scientologists?” Flynn suggested.
“Yes,” Gus answered. “But they also get spanked with an Olympic pewter medal.”
Before spittle could form at the edges of Lindsay’s mouth, Sebastian intervened and admitted that we were planning something special for Gus’s fortieth birthday, but would never divulge what that surprise was unless, of course, Gus fucked it out of each and every one of us, starting with Sebastian. Being the proper Brit that he is, Gus declined to go to such extremes, but he did allow his eyes to glance lasciviously at Sebastian’s extremely round ass, causing Brady to snuggle closer to Gus and hyperextend his own bulbous backside even farther away from his spine. Then, once he realized his friends had not forgotten his milestone, Gus showed that most improper of British emotions: joy.
“I can’t wait for the surprise!” Gus gushed. “But I have bad news for you boys.”
“Bad news has no place at your birthday surprise,” I replied.
“Bad news will not attend, and, unfortunately, neither will Wendolyn,” Gus said.
Flynn, Lindsay, Sebastian, and I didn’t dare look at each other, but gave each other imaginary high-fives.
“Oh, that’s too bad,” I lied. “You’re sure that there’s absolutely, positively, no chance in the entire whole wide world that Wendolyn will be able to attend?”
“Sorry, mate, she’ll be in Nepal with Richard Gere on my birthday weekend.”
“Your sister knows Richard Gere?” Brady asked.
“Yes, she hobnobs with the stars.”
“All of a sudden you’re even hotter than you were like five seconds ago.”
Gus and Brady started to make out with each other as if oblivious to our presence, so we decided it was time to give Daddy and Son some alone time. Almost instantly, Sebastian got sucked into the crowd by one of his many paramours, leaving the three of us alone to revel in our luck.
“I was so afraid we were going to have to invite psycho-sister!” I exclaimed.
“I know! Let’s tell Brady all about Ms. Wendolyn,” Lindsay suggested. “Guaranteed he’ll disappear quicker than my last crab infestation.”
“You still get crabs?” Flynn asked.
“Only when I have sex on the beach,” Lindsay replied. “We should find out if Brady’s last name starts with a G!”
We laughed hysterically, downing our cosmos like good homos, and wondered if Gus’s boy toy would still be so young, carefree, and gay once he found out the truth about Gus’s sister—that she is certifiably insane. And not just eccentric in that irrepressible Maggie Smithish sort of way, but undeniably nuts. It’s always difficult dealing with the mentally challenged, but the situation with Wendolyn is worse because Gus doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with how her brain works. To him, she’s his wacky baby sister. We think she’s missing a chromosome.
Among Wendolyn’s many symptoms is that she is mortally afraid of the letter G. Her real name is of course Gwendolyn, but she changed it before she hit her teens. It seems that when she was a little girl she got into her father’s collection of G-Man comics from the 1940s that was stored in the attic of their lovely country cottage. Gwendolyn was a shy child and preferred the solidarity of a stuffy attic to the overpopulation of a family outing, so while the rest of her family was enjoying a picnic on the rocky shore near the beach, Gwendolyn rummaged through the comics and spread them out in a circle around her until she was surrounded by the red, white, and blue uniformed G-Man, upholder of all things true and just. The floorboards of the attic, however, were not as strong and just couldn’t hold up Gwendolyn’s ample weight and she fell through. Actually, she only fell halfway through, as she got stuck right at the point where her size 35 waist bulged out over the wooden slats.
Clutching at the floor around her, Gwendolyn frantically tried to pull herself back up, but only succeeded in getting fists full of splinters and pulling the G-Man comics closer to her. Hysterical, she began to scream for help, but alas the family couldn’t hear her cries over their own laughter and the crashing of the waves. They went on frolicking about, assuming