Nerdy Punk Rock Animé Hair

Like I say at the beginning of all my support meetings, I am a nerd. I have a favorite comic artist and writer, and can give you in-depth reasons why I've chosen them. I write poetry. I perform said poetry in public. I've even done a couple of low-level national tours with other poets. I spent several years working at a renaissance faire. I liked it. I am a nerd.

I am also incredibly attracted to nerds. Sure the midwestern farm boy look is kind of hot. And who can resist a buff surfer boy. But give me mussy hair, glasses, and an IQ high enough to bake bread at, and I'm in love. And if they're multi-lingual...

Pardon me, I have to go change my pants.

Ahem, so...last year I was at a convention in Chicago. A friend of mine and I were staying at a hostel to cut down on the cost of the convention. It was the middle of August and the hostel had no air conditioning, and the free fans they supplied didn't work. We made plans to crash on the hotel room floors of other convention goers.

Why was I not whoring? Did I have a boyfriend? An STD? A sudden attack of morals? Hells, no. But in the five years I've been attending this convention I have never had the opportunity to stretch latex. Shit, I've never even been kissed by someone that I had a desire to be kissed by.

During the first day of the convention a good friend of mine reintroduced me to one of her gay friends. He was a hottie. Very punk nerd. Huge animé hair. I'd met him the year before and developed a mini-crush...until I caught him making out with my doppelganger (I have one...it's a story for another time). Note, I didn't stop crushing on him because he was making out with my doppelganger. The crush stopped when my doppelganger told me that Animé Hair was a terrible kisser.

At any rate, I spent some quality time hanging with Animé Hair and my friend (who might also have been referred to as Animé{e?} Hair), and decided he was a likable guy, but I refused to go all crush woozy. I was in fact chasing after a cute frustratingly straight attention whore who knew I had a crush on him (yet another story for another time).

At the end of the night, some friends and I ended up at the main hotel drinking and spitting words in the hotel room that contained, among other people, Animé Hair. As far as I could tell, no sparks were flying. Attention Whore left the room, to watch a couple of bisexual girls make out in one of the other rooms.

Over the course of the night, I had tried to get blitzed. Alas, I have a high tolerance for alcohol, and no love of beer, so getting blitzed can be expensive, even when the fairly unkind bud began being passed around the hotel room. Eventually, though, jet-lag, lack of sleep, alcohol, marijuana, and my interaction with Attention Whore made me dizzy. So when Animé Hair took my hostel room key and slid it into his pocket I was confused. Fairly soon after he took my key, his roommates decided that 4:28 in the morning was a good time to get some shut-eye, so I asked Animé Hair if he was coming to the hostel with me. He looked confused as I was and said sure.

We took an uneventful cab ride from hotel to hostel. We shot some shit and coy glances at each other. When we reached the hostel he said, "Well, I'd better get back to the hotel. I'll see you tomorrow."

"But" I stammered, as I fiddled with the door handle, "you have my room key."

"Huh?"

"My room key. You took my room key out of my hands back in your hotel room." I pulled the key out of his pocket. "See?"

"Oh. I'll come with you then." It made sense at the time. Really.

As I stepped from the cab I tripped a bit, and my canvas bag dropped to the pavement, spilling all my belongings. While I was collecting the books and papers, Animé Hair was snickering at me.

"What?"

"Progaine Shampoo?"

I turned crimson as my hair. "A pre-emptive strike against impending baldness."

He laughed some more. We went up to my room. I found out later that my roommate had crashed on Attention Whore's floor back at the hotel. We had the room to ourselves.

I'll spare you the coy boy flirtation ordeal and cut to the chase: he started talking about his boyfriend back home. Having previously learned my lesson regarding boys with boyfriends, I terminated flirtation. Or so I thought.

Animé Hair was spread out on my roommate's bed (which my roommate never got around to sleeping on). After every other sentence or so, he'd give me this incredibly flirtatious smirk. Finally, I could bear it no longer.

"If you've got a boyfriend, why do you keep looking at me like that?"

"Cause, hon, your dick is hanging out of your boxers."

The Loop (Part 3: Uh, Hey)

When Ernie started showing up at the store where I packed fudge in the literal sense, I knew I was in trouble. Potheads in a candy store are only good for business if they leave every once in a while. Ernie had been standing in the same place for so long that we'd actually varnished his shoes.

Around closing time, while I was sanitizing the knives, and weighing the remaining fudge, Ernie mentioned that he'd missed the last bus to Surrounding Town. At the time, I was living in a commune type house, three floors, seven bedrooms, living room, dining room, three bathrooms, kitchen, laundry room; a poor man's mansion. I was the poor man. "Well, we have a pretty comfortable futon in the living room if you don't mind my roommates coming in and out of the house at all hours."

"You know," Ernie said, "There was this sketchy guy in my college who used to tell freshman girls about his comfortable futon in order to entice them over to his dorm room where he'd get the drunk and fuck their brains out."

"I promise I'm not trying to get you drunk and fuck you. I'm trying to get you high and fuck you." It's important to note that I was trying to be funny. I was no more attracted to Ernie than I was to VH1. If I happen to be in the room while "Behind the Music" or "I Love the 90s" is on, I'll watch it, but I don't set aside time in my day to sit on the couch and watch "The Surreal Life" marathon. I was trying to be friendly and offer him a place to sleep, nothing more. I thought he was looking for an excuse to stay at my house because I lived with five very generous drug dealers, not because he wanted me to fuck his brains out.

As soon as we got back to my place, Ernie wandered into the dining room where two people who lived in the house, and seven people who probably should have been paying rent where sitting at the table, smoking. I headed into my room to change out of my work clothes.

I had just taken my pants off when Ernie opened the door. I regretted going commando. "Uh, hey." I said.

"I thought you were supposed to get me high before we came in here. Are you so horny you can't even wait?" I must have looked as uncomfortable as I felt because he added "Just kidding. I didn't know you were changing. Sorry." But he didn't leave the room or stop staring at me.

Four hours later he had been baked out of his bean, and his eyes had been properly glazed red. The rest of the crew had headed to the basement and plugged in the various instruments. Tonight's song to be butchered was "Running With The Devil." Somewhere in Obscurity, Eddie Van Halen started crying.

I had set up the futon for Ernie, said goodnight and headed into my room. I wasn't as baked as the rest of the household (I'd only inhaled second hand smoke), so I decided to forego my usual pre-sleep ritual. I didn't want Ernie to think I was decorating my cake for him.

When I woke up at 3 o'clock I knew something was unusual. It wasn't that the band had stopped playing. the house was eerily silent, but that wasn't incredibly unusual. There was the inappropriate ratio of smoke to air, and the house didn't appear to be flooded or on fire, and yet something was decidedly non-status quo. Ahh, yes, someone was sucking my dick.

"Uh, hey." Ernie said. I chose to ignore the fact that he was infringing on my copyrighted greeting, and chose to focus on the more important issue.

"Uh." I added more of a pause than usual, "Hey Ernie." I took a four second hour to figure out what to say. In the grand scheme of things, waking up to a houseguest sucking your dick is better than waking up to find a houseguest sharpening a knife or aiming a gun at your forehead or taking a shit on your toothbrush. But it's still a tad unsettling. I made a mental note to start locking my bedroom door. Oh, and to never invite Ernie over to the house again. I'd had much better blowjobs.

original post: http://community.livejournal.com/bad_sex/765359.html

The Loop (Part 2: Fucuvehicuphobia)

If love were a two-way street,
I would be a pedestrian
Crushed into a bloody paste
Beneath the wheels
Of a large red truck.

---Robin Blackburn

While my friends were fantasizing about being astronauts, doctors, rock stars, or Teen Wolf, I was harboring dreams of my own. I wanted to be a firetruck. Not one of those ladder-climbing masochist firemen. I didn't want to spend my time hooking up hoses to hydrants or putting on those unfashionable helmets, I wanted to be shiny red with flashing lights and blaring sirens.

When I realized that I was never going to transform, no matter how many Optimus Primes I bought, I settled on a new dream: writing my dirtiest secrets for the entertainment of a few close friends and hundreds of complete strangers. I'd like to thank LiveJournal for making that dream come true.

Apart from the occasional pulling to the side of the road, and a few high school fire drills, I haven't had a close relationship to fire trucks in years. Police cars on the other hand were becoming routine. So were red trucks.

During a trip from Boston to Burlington with Zuzu, we got into a very minor fender bender. Even the fender escaped unscathed. In the fantasy story that the pseudo-Abe Simpson who'd crashed into us when he wasn't paying attention told his insurance company, he was driving along minding his own business when a fleet of red trucks swerved around him causing him to crash into him. The insurance company was positively shocked to learn this wasn't true. Apparently Not-So-Honest Abe had used The Red Truck Defense in previous accidents.

Between that story, and the deja-vu truck, I was developing quite the case of fucuvehicuphobia (fear of red trucks). So rhe police car at the end of the street was somewhat of a relief. Of course, being having studied myself into oblivion (stupid Anthropology!), there was also an air of foreboding. I made eye contact with the officer in the car, nodded, and walked up a road between the mall and the parking garage. Neither the truck nor the cop car followed.

"You've really got to relax a little." Ryan said. "The world isn't out to get to you."

"Shouldn't you be busy decomposing somewhere." I muttered.

"That got boring real quick. Serving as your subconscious is much more fun."

I scanned the road for signs of life. "Go away. It's not Christmas yet, Jacob Marley."

"And I'm not indigestion, asshole. You're so baked you ---"

I started singing U2's "40" until I was safely at the building that passed as home for most of the year that I lived in Burlington. By then Ryan was buried in the same portion of my brain as Ted's talking cat.

"Hey Safe," one of the many people who didn't live in our house, but was nevertheless always there, said. "Want a hit?"

Hell, yes, I wanted a hit. I wanted a hit like A-Rod during his first month with the Yankees, like J*Lo's A&R man, like a masochist in the ring with Mike Tyson, like a guy with two deuces playing blackjack, like a hurricane on unprepared land, I wanted a hit like a paranoid kid coming home high from a party and running into a red pickup truck a cop car and the ghost of his dead boyfriend. God fucken damnit I wanted a hit.

"Do you want a hit?" Zach asked.

Wasn't he listening to the narrative going on in my head? Yes, I wanted a fucken hit. "Uhhh. Sure." I sat down at the dining room table, and waited for him to hand me the bubbler.

"Rough night?"

Again with the questions, what was he, Barbara fucken Walters? "Yea. There was this kind of....intense party at Seth's...shrooms...pot...a talking cat...an action figure in a an electric chair...and then this truck was following me...and there was a cop car...but the brownies were pretty good."

Zach was inhaling during the entire seven hours it took me to finish my soliloquy. Actually, it might have only been a second and half. I wasn't sure whether I was talking ridiculously slow, or insanely fast. All I knew for sure was that my pupils were spinning around my eyes. I was seconds away from "TILT".

I took another really long drag, sputtered out a "Thanks, I needed that" and retired to my room. But just like Ozzy Osbourne retiring from touring, I was up again five minutes later, taking another hit on the way to the bathroom, and then another on the way back.

I locked the door behind me (mostly to keep things like this from happening), took off my clothes and tried to find a comfortable way to sleep on my god-awful futon frame. After approximately fifteen seconds, I flung the futon on the floor, turned up the Gomez on my CD player and commenced an intense self-loveathon.

I think the reason the masturbation fest lasted so long wasn't that the various drugs had numbed me, it was that I couldn't decide who I wans fantasizing about. I have a strict no masturbating about people I could theoretically fuck policy. That way, if I ever end up fucking said person, I won't have ridiculously high standards. There's little worse than spending months fantasizing about drilling a hole in the tight, toned ass of a screaming in ecstasy coworker only to discover that their nearly non-existent ass can't even muster a proper moan when you insert your thermometer of love in their rectum. The prospect of another four years of Bush? Worse. The fact that they green lighted a spin-off of Friends? Worse. Mushroom clouds over North Korea? Worse. That's about it, though.

I flipped through the appropriate celebrities of the moment, then the most attractive of the guys I'd fucked during whore month, then the most attractive guys I wished I'd fucked during high school and college, I had just about settled on Cute Straight Boy when "What about me?" Ryan asked.

"Go. Away."

"I'm not even" And he wasn't. I went back through my catologue, and settled on Victor. I don't mean I settled for Victor like I'll settle for macaroni and cheese when I'm all out of steak, I mean I settled for Victor like Puritans settled on the North American continent. Actually there was nothing Puritanical about the way I was settling on Victor, but I was using him as refuge from the tyranny of the First Church of Ryan.

When I woke up, it was either still dark outside or dark again. I checked the answering machine for messages. Took a hit of the bubbler while I listened to my roommate's psycho bitch girlfriend's thirty-seven messages asking him where he was. Then I called Senorita Penuche and The Soggy Blind Lesbian and made plans to hang out downtown so I wouldn't spend any more time in the house getting high and/or jerking off. Not that there's anything wrong with either of those things.

I was on my way out the door when Zach, James, and an assortment of people I'd never met before in my life bounded in through the back door, prattling on about an upcoming Ween show. "...and if I go as a geisha girl, they're bound to remember me. Oh hey, Safe, heard you had a little run in on The Loop last night."

"Huh?" I was new to this whole drug thing. I'd smoked a little pot here and there in Cranberry Lake, but I'd never been up on the lingo. "The loop?"

original posts: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/51552.html

The Loop (Part 1: Studying With Monkey Boy)

I was at the stage of poor where I was salivating at the prospect of Ramen noodles. Even the mention of the word cheeseburger gave me an erection. After a month of living off popcorn, rice, and charity dinners, I knew I needed a change. More than change, I needed some paper money fast.

My friend, Penuche got me a job packing fudge. Sadly, this was not the first time I'd taken a job that some people might think was a euphemism for my sex life. I'd packed fudge in Provincetown, Cranberry Lake, Florida, and at a Renaissance Faire, and now it was time for me to pack fudge in Burlington Vermont. I hate being poor.

It was during a shift of fudge packing with Penuche that Ted the Monkey Boy tap danced into my life. "You're pretty good at that."

"Nah." he said "It's just real easy to fake on this floor."

I pretended not to stare too intently on Monkey as he and Penuche flirted. Cut fudge, wrap in tissue, center in box, fold corner flaps, wrap in bow. Cut fudge, wrap in tissue, center in "You can come, too if you like." he said.

"Sorry, I was in Chocolate Walnut Land. Come where?"

"My house. I'm having a little shindig. Do you....study?"

For those who have never lived in Burlington (which I believe is a huge chunk...maybe all of my friend's list), I should explain. One of the uberhippies in Burlington goes by the name of Jesse. Jesse is connected to one of the larger, more successful organic drug dealers this side of Canada...and the other side of Canada (that being, Canada). We'll call him The Guru. The Guru's legit job was as a book salesman. Therefore, people like Jesse called Guru at work and ordered textbooks instead of drugs. I don't remember which subjects corresponded with which drugs, but it was something to the effect of mushrooms being Biology, LSD being Calculus, Ecstasy being Anatomy, and cocaine being "look shithead, I don't deal cocaine, it's time for you to get counseling."

For this particular party, we'd be studying Anthropology. I brought my bubbler.

Do to the vast amount of studying I did at said party, I don't remember very much of it. I remember eating some sort of veganesque sandwich. About halfway through, I became incredibly full. Not just full to my stomach, but I could feel my brain pressing against my skull. Memories oozed out my ears. My two month backlog of sperm shot out covering the room with a --- you get the idea.

"I should go." I told Ted's cat. "I'm really tired, and I have to work tomorrow."

"Don't you think you should crash here, and call in high?" The cat asked.

"No. My boss doesn't mind me coming in high." This was true. During my interview, my boss, The Oompah Loompah, asked me whether I smoked. After a six hour pause where I looked quizzically at my shoes, he said "Don't worry. I just want to know if I should invite you over to my house for a few weekenders."

"Suit yourself." said the cat.

"Bye Ted's cat."

"Ted's bi."

"Huh?"

"Bye."

I staggered down the stairs of the apartment and out into the freezing fucken cold streets of Burlington. Having only been in town for a few months, and never having been to the section of town where Ted the Monkey Boy lived, I was somewhat unsure what was the most expedient way home. I knew the direction, but there was an assortment of annoying buildings and sculptures in my way. Plus a mall. Fucken malls.

I was a bit southeast of the mall when I noticed a pickup truck. I had an intense feeling of deja vu. Once I had ascertained that there was no gun rack or "I hunt red heads for sport" bumper sticker, I returned to my paranoid about everything but the pickup truck state and walked toward the mall.

About two minutes later, I noticed a pickup truck. I had an intense feeling of deja vu. Once I had ascertained that there was no gun ruck or "Honk if you love Homicide" bumper stickers, I returned to my paranoid about everything but the pickup truck state and walked toward the mall.

I was about fifty yards from the mall when I noticed a pickup truck. I had an intense feeling of What the Fuck I Know I've Seen This Pickup Truck At Least Three Times Now, and broke into a run. That's when I spotted the police car.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/49409.html

Drowning Pedophilia

So what do you do when you find out the stranger you picked up in a grocery store is underage? You fuck him.

Maybe it was the pot mumbling, or maybe I was just an unethical hornball. Whatever the lame excuse, once I processed the fact that I couldn't actually be arrested for being a twenty-one year old fooling around with a seventeen year old, all my reservations about how his family could kill me anyway flew right out the window. Perhaps they were trying to catch up with the pot smoke.

Tommy wanted to blow me again, and how could I say no to more head from the best barely legal fallater to ever walk the earth?

We're on the bed doing some 69 and, as I'm wont to do when there's ass to be played with, I let my fingers do the walking. A little squishy squish, some slappy slap, and some pokey poke (I'm gonna stoppy stop now). I'll confess it right here, publicly, for all the cringing world to see that yes, I have an ass fetish. Tommy's ass, while not ideally round, was at least present. So I slide my index finger in and out a few times before upgrading to the middle finger. Next up is the thumb of doom which, while it obviously can't get in as deep as it's better hung companions, has better girth, and is much easier to make eccentric ellipses with.

Tommy is bucking and thrashing and SPLAT. Drizzle. Drizzle. Moan. SPLAT. Drizzle. Yelp. SPLAT. Drizzle. Drizzle. Screech. SPLAAAAAAAAAT. Drizzle. Drizzle. Drizzle. Drip. Drip. SPLAT. Drip.

Damn.

"Fuck me. Please."

I was taken a bit aback. Not that Tommy wanted to be fucked, but that he was so enthusiastic about it. He had been a typical mellow stoner up to this point. Monotonous voice, Garfield shaded eyelids, and slouch.

It would be nice to think I had some sort of internal dialog about whether or not this was a good idea, but the only thing my dick could think of to say to my brain was "Thank God you keep your condoms within reach of the bed, now move my damned arm."

And in we go, doggy style. This boy was tighter than spandex on David Lee Roth. The only word that accurately describes sex with Tommy is "Damn."

When we were finished, we passed out draped across each other. When I woke up it was dark outside. I kept staring at Tommy, thinking he was bathed in moonlight, but it was actually a streetlight. Eventually we got up, and I drove him over to a friend's house, where he'd decided to stay the night.

This was the start of something a tad more meaningful than just whoring around. You know that cliché about how there are other fish in the sea? I kept thinking Tommy would be the keeper. Turns out I had throw him back. He was too small.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/17452.html

A Minor Situation

The warning signs:
He lived with his parents.
He rode his bike because he didn't have a car.
He liked cartoons.
He got my sense of humor.
He was smoking pot with the bagboys at a grocery store.

On their own, none of these things mean everything, but put altogether, how did I not realize that I had picked up an underage boy in a grocery store parking lot. I mean, he looked over 18.

His profile hadn't listed an age, but I assumed --

Fuck.

I was now the posterboy for "contributing to the delinquency of a minor." We'd drank, smoked pot, and he'd sucked my dick.

I was going to prison.

But first I was going to take a long hit off the joint he rolled. I briefly pondered buying some off him and offering him a beer just to cover the points spread.

"Want to go back inside?" he asked. Yes. I wanted to go back inside with him, alter the timeline and meet him when he was eighteen. If I couldn't do that, I wanted to go inside and freak out about the fact that he never told me he was jailbait, and I wasn't intelligent enough to ask him how old he was. But I thought that might ruin the mood, so I asked "How long have you known John?"

"Since we were kids." Right. When they were kids. As opposed to now that they were in high school together. I ---

I remembered something from an online argument in one of the chatrooms. A sixteen year old was talking about his twenty year old fuckbuddy, and when people harangued him about legal issues, he'd linked them to a website about state laws. In our state it was perfectly legal for someone under twenty-two to fuck around with someone over sixteen. I was under twenty-two.

"How old are you?" "Seventeen."

I did the legal happy dance in my head. Morally, I was still less than thrilled. I just couldn't picture myself driving a white van and hanging around tech school parking lots. I was too good for that. Only grocery store parking lots for me.

"My friends tell me I give great head." Nice segue.

"You're amazing. You should be teaching classes." Instead of attending them in a middle high school.

"I've always wanted to get fucked, but never had the courage to ask anybody about it. It's why I decided to meet someone online today."

Rut-roh Rhaggy.

There were so many ways this could go horribly wrong.

1.) His parents could find out. Being absolutely terrified about his parents discovering his sexuality, he could lie and say he'd been seduced. Neither of us would ever be able to go out in public in Nowheresville again without facing some sort of ridicule.

2.) His parents could find out, and he could be completely honest with them, and they could fuck up his life anyway.

3.) Miss M. could hear us through the thin walls, if she hadn't already, and start telling everyone in the neighborhood, and her family, and his family, and my family, that I was fucking teenage boys. Goodbye any sort of political career (which is a moot point at this stage in my life, but at the time it was still a nearly improbable possibility).

4.) He could suggest a threesome with Johnny, who I'd known since Johnny was eleven. That would never happen. Johnny was cute and all but he was Johnny, just a kid. I couldn't be attracted to him any more than I could be attracted to his fri-- Bugger.

5.) No one would find out, and we'd end up having a secret relationship which would do wonders for us sexually but distract him from his college applications.

6.) We would end up in a relationship so wonderful that he would come out to his parents, introduce me, and then they would beat me to death with their collection of Gideon's Bibles.

7.) We would end up in a relationship so wonderful that he would come out to his parents, who would pretend to love me while secretly pooring arsenic into my Cherry Coke until I died.

8.) We would end up in a relationship so wonderful that he would come out to his parents, who would really love me, and want to spend some time camping or something with my family who would kill me when they found out I'd been fucking a seventeen year old boy.

There were hundreds of variations on these thoughts involving angry mob justice, Jerry Springer, NAMBLA meetings, and various other things I never wanted to be a part of my autobiography if I ever became famous. But we connected on so many levels before I found out how old he was, and it wasn't as though he were thirteen, or mentally retarded or anything. He was nearly a consenting adult.

I was nearly kidding myself.

I decided to make it a non-issue. We spent some time talking about how long he'd wanted to get fucked, why he wanted to get fucked. If he was sure it was a great idea to get fucked by some guy he'd just met on The Internet. The fact that I really wanted to fuck him, but really didn't want to fuck him up. I suggested we wait.

He kissed me. That boy could do anything with his mouth.

At this point, age was a moot point. I still wasn't going to fuck him until he'd really thought about it, but it was because I didn't want to see him make a mistake, not because he was seventeen.

His hands went down to my zipper again. I took his hand and led him back upstairs.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/9235.html

In Stealth Mode

Apart from the occasional tourist looking for a more enjoyable vacation, Nowheresvillem4m was mostly filled with the same desperate whores every day. Not that I was a desperate whore or anything. I'm just saying.

There was TommyIsAWhore, RandomProvincetownSlut, AlwaysOnEBoy, and VinnyTheStylist. They were like a background image. I always noticed them but rarely engaged them in conversation. After all, I'd already hooked up with, or rejected all of them. Isn't that what whores are supposed to do?

I'd never met up with VinnyTheStylist. Even via AOL, I sort of sensed there was something not quite right about him. We'd never IMed, but he would often scroll his sexual frustrations throughout the chat room. And who wants to fuck a whiny AOL scrollmonster?

One day I was IMing with Tommy (he was the one person I had no desire to ignore, even if we didn't plan on hooking up again) when I got a deluge of IMs from people in the chatroom. I answered them all with the appropriate responses. Most quickly got Xed out and forgotten, but one of the conversations seemed to be going pretty well. I was being my usually charming hysterical self and he was finding me amusing. We were several minutes into the conversation when I noticed that it was VinnieTheStylist.

Some times your first impressions of people are wrong, so I decided not to begrudge his scrolling habits, and continued the conversation.

He seemed really sweet. After about a half an hour, he suggested we meet at a local hotel for drinks. We wouldn't hook-up that day, but we'd hang out and see what happened. He didn't have a pic to send me, so I declined to send him my own.

I got to the hotel about fifteen minutes early. I ordered myself an amaretto sour, and watched golf on the hotel lounge's obscenely large television. About five minutes later an incredibly disheveled (and not in a cute way), wild-haired, junkie-looking guy shuffled in. He looked the way William S. Burroughs should have looked when he was about forty. I had a disturbing feeling that this was VinnyTheStylist.

He sat down and ordered a Bud. The bartender flat out refused to serve him. For the first time in my life, I became completely engrossed in the PGA on ABC.

The person I assumed to be Vinnie ordered a Coke. The bartender gave it to him. Reluctantly. Vinnie downed his Coke, and got on his cell phone. "Hey, Mom? Yea, I'm not gonna be able to make it for dinner tonight. I've got a date. Huh? No. I'm clean. Just a little nervous about my date, that's all." He rubbed at his nose, which I noticed was crusted with blood. Birdie, par, drive, nice lie, to the pin, fairway, please don't let this be VinnieTheStylist, chip, water hazard, sploosh.

"Hey." he turned to me, as he hung up his phone. "Are you AliasUsed?"

John Daley is in the rough. "Sorry?"

"I'm Vinnie. You're AliasUsed, right?"

"No. Sorry."

"Oh." Tiger Woods. Greg Norman. From the tee.

I watched golf for a half hour while Vinnie preened, picked up, then returned his cell phone to his pocket, drank four or five more overpriced Cokes, then went to the bathroom.

This was my opportunity. I paid for my one, well-nursed drink, and walked out to my car. As I climbed into my car, I heard Vinnie call out the alias (not Insafemode) that I had given him. I closed the door, turned the key in the ignition, and pulled out of the parking lot.

I was getting ready to turn onto the highway onramp when a jeep swerved alongside me. Vinnie was inside. He was shouting something I couldn't make out in my direction. I turned onto the onramp. He cut off a tractor trailer truck, nearly getting himself killed, in order to follow me. Shit.

Rather than try any fancy driving or speeding, I drove as if I wasn't being pursued by a coked-up online whore reject. He rode my ass, flashed his lights, beeped his horn, pulled alongside me and made the roll-down-the-window pantomime. Since he didn't appear to have a gun, I obliged.

"I know who you are. Pull over. Let's talk."

"Go away." I rolled my window up. He swerved really quickly in front of me, and slowed down. I fucken hate crazy people. I tried to get around him, but he kept swerving in front of me.

The next exit was mine. I hoped that he would continue swerving in front of me, so I could quickly veer off the highway and drive home.

No such luck.

He pulled in behind me, and started riding my ass again.

There were very few times that I was pleased to live near a police station. This was one of them. I pulled into the parking lot. He did not follow me in.

I sat in the lot, destressing for about five minutes. There was nowhere, excepting people's driveways, for Vinnie to park and have a view of the police station. I pulled out, looking intently both ways. Nothing. I breathed. I took a right into my condo complex. No Vinnie. I parked next to a massive SUV (I knew they were good for something), and trembled to my apartment.

I decided this was a perfect time to end Whore Month. I signed onto my AOL screenname, went InStealthMode, and blocked VinnieTheStylist from IMing or e-mailing me, and signed off. Then, because I was more horny than enlightened, I signed in under a different screenname.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/9510.html

What's Your Sign? (Part 3: Bad Day For Vampires = Good Day For Ecstasy)

Any conversation that starts with dark depression, is bound to end with an angry albino.

I licked my lips. No blood, but you could have made dentures from the depression on my lower lip.

"¿fine?" Alex asked again.

"yes - sorry - think too hard"

"¿not want?" he nodded at the pills. "sorry"

"no - don't know word - not worry - me"

There was a knock on the door. "Hello?"

"¿who you think?" I asked

"¿who me think what?"

"¿who knocking?"

"¿knocking? sorry - not hear - (shocked expression) maybe me deaf"

I flipped him off.

"sorry - not understand" anyone who thinks that sarcasm is all about vocal inflection needs to spend a day locked in a room with a sarcastic Deaf person.

I got up and opened the door. "Hey Safe. What's wrong with your lip?" It was Bernard, the campus's albino asshole. What he lacked in pigmentation, he made up for in pigheadedness. I would have invited him in, but I was afraid he'd accept. "Is Alex here?"

"Alex?" I yelled. "No answer. He must be somewhere else."

Bernard pushed the door open. "Oh there he is. Hey Alex, something wrong with your hearing?"

I translated. Alex signed back "no - ¿wrong with skin?"

I felt like I was trapped in a very boring David Lynch script. "Ask him if he's coming to my party tonight?"

"¿you go asshole party?"

"No." Alex said. "Busy." It struck me that Alex's voice was sexy in that gravelly, hardly-ever-used sort of way. He turned his head back to the computer. Conversation over.

"Well, if he's not going, ask him if he's got anything he might want to donate to the cause."

"Like what?" I asked.

"Ask him."

"You want to know, you ask him."

He tapped Alex on the shoulder and very slowly and loudly said "Do you have any ecstasy?"

Alex cocked his head to the side, and expanded his eyes until they were frog sized "Noooooooooo." and to me he signed "tell asshole go"

"What did he say?"

"He either said 'sorry he doesn't have any pills, maybe you should ask someone else' or 'tell the asshole to go away', I'm not sure, my sign language is a little rusty."

"Asshole." he said to the back of Alex's head, and slammed the door as he left the room.

Alex turned toward me "¿hear that?"

"no ¿you?"

"¿his problem?" Any discussion that begins with an angry albino is bound to end with a sheep. At least, that's been my experience.

"not know - ¿bad day for vampire?"

Alex laughed. A sound I loved.

"¿doing?" I asked.

He waved me over to the computer. He had been writing me a note on my laptop. I not know sure if you know signs I want to use, and no patience for fingerspelling. Hope I not make you uncomfortable with ecstasy. Just like hanging out with you. Thought it would be fun. Don't know when the next time Matt go to parents's. Maybe my one chance to corrupt you.

"¿sign c-o-r-r-u-p-t?" I asked. He showed me. "¿you corrupt me? ¿me?"

He went back to typing. Yes. You. Reading the way he was typing, I realized that his English comp teacher was right, he was definitely picking up my writing style. Short, choppy sentences that get directly to the point. Of course, it was also possible that my writing was influenced by American Sign Language. You need corrupting. I saw your cache.

Cache? Cash? Catch? What did cache mean? "¿c-a-c-h-e?"

He dragged the mouse up to the history folder and opened up my cache. Ohhhh, cache. Fuck.

He turned toward me. "me know you - same as - like you ¿like me?"

It was my turn to get frog-eyed.

"¿no?"

"no" I shook my head "yes" I should have clarified by kissing him, instead I leaned over and started typing Yes, I like you. I didn't know you were...bi? gay?

He pointed to gay, and then took control of the keyboard. Why do you think I hang out with you? Your ASL sucks. I waiting for you make move. But you slow.

"you english shit ¿who teach you type?"

Some faggot.

"he suck"

"me hope"

I picked up the Ziploc bag and poured a couple pills in my hand. "¿many?"

"¿first?" he asked. I nodded. "one" And like a good little sheep, I swallowed.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/59352.html

What's Your Sign? (Part 2: A Pocket Full Of Ecstacy)

A Insafemode entry that begins with ecstasy is bound to end in depression. Maybe Murphy's Law, Karma, Fate, Ka, or whatever you call The Mysterious Force Who Keeps The Universe in Check, decided my pessimism should be rewarded with realization. Maybe I'm just a precog. But when Alex pulled a Ziploc of ecstasy out of his pocket, my stomach sank.

"¿Try?" he asked

I had read an article or two about how E made you lose your inhibitions. Not medical texts, but stories from the nifty archive. I liked my inhibitions where they were, around my neck, strangling me.

"No." I liked Alex a lot. He was track star/swimmer hot. Short blonde hair. Chiseled stomach. The type of face that looked awesome in sunglasses. Michaelangelo's David in swim trunks. He was also hella funny, smart, and always fun to be around. So, Insafemode, I ask myself, what's the problem? And don't say it's the drugs.

But it was the drugs. I had no aversion to doing drugs, I just wasn't sure I wanted to do any drugs in the presence of Alex. I mean, why was he offering me ecstasy? Did he want to fool around? Was Alex gay? Was there some other cool reason to do ecstasy that I didn't know about? (Curse you Nifty for not having more thorough reports on recreational drugs!)

Aside from the drugs, there was the issue that I wasn't out. I'd had some fun with Victor in high school, but I'd been going straight since then. And, frankly, the experience had been more traumatizing than good.

So, assuming Alex was trying to get with me, why was I being so hesitant? I could get high and chalk everything up to drug induced experimentation.

"¿You fine?"

I came out of my daze long enough to realize I had bitten down so hard on my lower lip that I'd left teeth marks.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/58692.html