by Max Steele

I wore the most expensive thing I own, the leather jacket with diagonal grey and blue stripes all over it. I spent my Christmas bonus on it, a whole month’s rent, and then, for years, I never wore it because I was scared of ruining it. But I wanted to be impressive and it was finally cool enough so I took a chance and wore it to Mike’s birthday brunch. I’d never been to the restaurant before, a bourgie café downtown. I had gone to a rock show the previous night. That band Royal Trux reunited and put on a shitty show. In the 90s they were a notorious junkie couple who failed upward into major-label success; they blew huge amounts of Virgin Record’s money on dope and never really made a beautiful thing. I was disappointed in their set and mad at myself for expecting more so I got very drunk at the show. I thought Mike’s brunch would be relaxed and casual but that morning, miserable with a hangover, I thought how cruel it was that the birthday party was so early, 2PM on a Saturday. 

When I arrived, they were playing very loud gospel and disco, not at all relaxing. A big table with three very chipper and loud gay guys I’d never met before, and three I knew. Balloons and party hats for the group. The three guys I knew all admired my expensive leather jacket, were appropriately impressed. The three I didn’t know thought I was overdressed, I guess, but I forgot their names and they’re not really in the rest of the story. 

I sat next to Jordan, who I’d met at another mutual friend’s birthday over the summer, and had just fucked a few weeks ago. On our first date, Jordan wondered if I’d only asked him out because I was trying to get a book deal. I said no, I didn’t know what he did for a living I just thought he was cute. He was miffed that I didn’t know how important of an editor he was. At the birthday, he greeted me coldly, stilted, but did admit my jacket was nice (how could he not?). I didn’t understand why he was being snitty, he was the one who’d rejected me after our second date. I went home with him and followed him up several flights of stairs to his apartment, and then he equivocated about whether he wanted to have sex. He still wasn’t convinced I really liked him, like I hadn’t been demonstrative enough. I tried to convince him, and asked if I could kiss him, if I could stay over, but he said no and asked me to leave. He lived above the gay bar I went to all the time, so I just went downstairs. I tried to get together with him again after that, but he brushed me off. If anything, I should have been cold to him but the day wasn’t about him. 

Mike knew that we’d gone out, and he sat us next to each other at his birthday party. Jordan and Mike both told me how funny it was when, once, Jordan fucked Mike, or tried to -- Jordan came immediately. I’d heard this story from both of them separately, and they repeated it at brunch that afternoon as I was sitting between them. 

Feeling disgusting from the night before, I ordered a fruit salad while everyone else ordered pancakes, bacon, eggs and biscuits. My food was more beautiful and better than anything else at the table. A whole pineapple hollowed out and filled with fresh fruit and whipped cream, just for me. The other boys smeared margarine on their cold fried things. Mike, jealous, sent his eggs back and ordered what I did, anything for the birthday boy. I’d forgotten it was a drag brunch. A snarky queen flitted around during the service, occasionally lip syncing to a song or two and making jokes on the microphone. She did this thing in between numbers where she’d go backstage into the kitchen and then come out rubbing her nose theatrically and pretending like she’d just snorted coke. I thought that was hilarious. Maybe not pretending. We all drank bottomless mimosas. Bryan, the other person I knew, convinced the table that we should switch to screwdrivers, since both drinks had orange juice in them. Always a troublemaker, his nickname was Bry-Bry. 

 After the brunch service, Bry-Bry convinced us to go to another bar, so we went to Barracuda another place I’d never been, but in the middle of the day it was empty. We watched a sad lonely queen do a ballad, but then the boys and I took over the stage and just sat there drinking and laughing, there was no one there and Bryan got us shots, the ones that come in big plastic test tubes. I was hungover that morning, but swung too far forward and was fantastically drunk. 

I started flirting with Mike and he started flirting back, which felt magical, karmic. I knew it was probably just the alcohol and my cool striped leather jacket. It makes me look like a superhero. In the years we’d known each other, Mike had never before responded to my advances. I couldn’t let this opportunity slip away. 

When we left the second bar it was dark outside, we’d been in there drinking for hours. We decided to go back to Brooklyn. At this point, before we even got into the taxi, Mike and I were making out, sloppy and wet. The hundreds of dollars I’d spent on the jacket were paying off, drawing him into me. We had to take two cabs to Brooklyn. I sat in the back seat with Bry-Bry to my left and Mike to my right. It got blurry over the bridge. 

Somehow the other cab, with Jordan and the guys I didn’t know, made it over to Bry-Bry’s house before we did, and his roommate let them in. 

We went to Bry-Bry’s house where we had a nightcap, and some cocaine as well. Bry-Bry kept a little porcelain container of it in a kitchen drawer, like any other spice. His house was legendary. Unlike all the other buildings on this block in Williamsburg, his had yet to be renovated. It was a split-level three bedroom from a century ago, surrounded by luxury skyscrapers. Every year he threw a big Easter party. Lots of dyed eggs and candy and little bowls of cigarettes for the guests. HIs house was full of antiques, decorated in a kitschy retro southern style. We’d point to plates of cupcakes, cookies, finger sandwiches, and say “Easter -- EAT HER!” I never tired of that joke. He’d made a bonfire in the backyard where he had a garden and swing set, and the neighbors in the luxury buildings always called the fire department, who were all surprised to find what looked like a 1960s acid freakout. I never turned down an invitation to go to Bry-Bry’s house, no matter the holiday, not even on Mike’s birthday when we were already wasted. Mike and I had hatched a plan to leave together, so we had a farewell toast and a couple of goodnight bumps, before we peeled off. Bye bye, Bry-Bry! 

Mike lived around the corner from me (itself a huge turn on). 

On our way home he said “You’re gonna fuck me right?” 

I said “Yeah.” 

“And you’re gonna breed me, right? I’m on PrEP, don’t worry.” 

“Of course,” I said, “it is your birthday.” Being coy, like I was obliging him. He was a fancy fashion editor but had a tiny, filthy apartment, I guess to save money. When we undressed, he was surprised that I was so direct in bed. I guess my enthusiasm hadn’t registered. We stopped after a minute, though, because he had to go to the bathroom. He hollered from the toilet that he was sorry but he couldn’t continue, that cocaine always gave him indigestion, and I should just go home. 

 “Oh okay,” I said, “I can come back another time if you want?” I’m so pathetic. 

The next morning there was a group text, I only recognized half the phone numbers. Someone said “That was such a fun brunch.” Another person said they definitely blacked out. Someone else said they wished they were in the other car, the one with the blowjob. I said I wished I was in the car with the blowjob too. A number I didn’t recognize said that I was the one who got a blowjob in the back of the car.

 I had forgotten, but then it started to become clear to me as it was explained. While we were in the cab on the way to Bryan’s house, I was making out with Mike and Bry-Bry started rubbing my pants, then unzipped my fly and gave me a little fellatio. I didn’t cum or anything, he didn’t do it long enough to get the attention of the driver, but I think he was trying to join in the incipient romance between Mike and I. Maybe trying to disrupt it, spread it around. Pop it like a balloon. 

 I wondered, is it a blackout, really, if it’s so extended? Isn’t it more like a blurring, like the blue hour? Growing up in California, during drought seasons when there were electricity shortages, the state organized rolling blackouts to prevent brown-outs, which could be dangerous and start fires. That’s what it felt like; worse somehow than a total erasure of my memory, but instead a corruption, a dimming.  

I remembered that before he moved to New York, Mike wrote something shitty about me online, that I was a loser and had no friends, piling on after a particularly cruel article about me came out. When Mike moved here we met for drinks, and he sort of flirted with me but made it clear he wasn’t going to go beyond resting his hand on my thigh. When I asked about the nasty thing he wrote about me, he vaguely admitted to it, but he brushed it off, saying “That was before”. I thought he meant that it was before he met me, but maybe he meant that was before he moved here. I think he hoped I forgot about it.  

Since then, I’ve wondered if this was my low point, trying to turn a foe into a friend. Yes, I had a crush on Mike, of course I did. I admired his casual cruelty. I thought I could convince him to like me by being nice enough. By showing up enough. I was trying to be durable, calm, useful, and pleasant. I wanted to prove my worthiness by, what exactly? Being forgiving? Being patient? Being willing to make myself vulnerable, to admit I was attracted to him? I realized all the guys at his birthday party had a crush on Mike, too, that’s why we were invited, but only I was corny and foolish enough to admit it. I felt chosen. He called me Maxy. No one calls me that; it’s not my nickname. I didn’t want to disabuse him of it. I just wanted to be a pet. I wanted to be loyal, like a dog.

As a kid, I was in a production of Romeo and Juliet and I wanted very much to be Tybalt, the prophetic villain, whose passion leads to a spectacular climax. Instead, I was cast as Benvolio, the best friend who doesn’t get to do anything except whine. “This character,” the director said, “he’s like a puppy. He’s so loyal.” I went to Shakespeare camp for several years. We were precocious children who memorized the full text entirely phonetically. We rattled off the monologues, completely unaware of what we were saying, but felt sophisticated and advanced. I remember the directors, mostly middle-aged and out of work actors and speech coaches, looking miserable and bored, chain smoking and pacing. Occasionally, some of them lost patience with us, got fed up with babysitting, threw tantrums and stormed out of rehearsals. It must have been unbearable for them.