Beauty And The Bookworm (2 page)

“You too,” I said as I watched him jog away and thought about how long it would take to drown in duck shit
. Maybe it would be quicker if I put rocks in my pockets. I realized I didn’t have any pockets (I’ve never been good at planning ahead) and decided I’d have to live with my tongue-bonered shame. I went back to my book, reminding myself that meetings between shape-shifting homos were never awkward.

It took a while, but eventually I fell back into
Easter Lust
, finished it, and started
Pole to Pole
, a novella about two hot cops who have to go undercover as go-go boys and end up sitting on each other’s poles. I was just really getting into it when a shadow that was definitely not a cloud blocked out the sun. I looked up into the dazzling smile of the runner who’d almost caused my suicide earlier in the day. It appeared he’d done a lap of the park.

“Mind if I use your bench?”

I thought that was a little bit rude, but I had gotten a peek at his butthole earlier and then refused to be gentlemanly and pretend I hadn’t, so I guess I kind of owed him and if he didn’t want to sit next to me,
fine
. I stood up and stepped away from the bench. “It’s all yours.”

He was
still
grinning and I was beginning to think he might have some entitlement issues. Beautiful people usually have entitlement issues - the fuckers. I’m sure he got what he asked for all the time. A
no
probably hadn’t entered his ears since he was being taught not to stick his hands on the stove burner by his mother. She was probably gorgeous too.

“Don’t get up.”

“I’m already up.”

The grin finally left. “Yes, but… if you want to sit back down, we can share the bench. I just need a corner to stretch.”

“Oh.” I sat back down and pretended to read my book while the running man put his right foot on the bench and gave that leg a good stretch, following up with the left leg. I gave up pretending to read when he sat down on the ground directly in front of me with his legs stretched out in front of him. He brought his chest flush with his knees and reached his hands at least a foot past his sneakers. The guy was limber.

He also noticed me watching. “
Gotta stretch after a run.”

“
Don’t I know it,” I said, because, you know, I
did
attend gym class once upon a time. I eventually got out of it with a hard-won, totally bogus asthma diagnosis that placed me right where I wanted to be – the library. But I did remember the bit about stretching after a run.

By then the running man had his legs splayed and I looked out over the lake to avoid staring up the leg of his shorts and letting my eyes take a hike to the Promised Land. I wa
tched the ducks gliding across the water and pretended physical perfection wasn’t below me with its legs spread wide. The thing was, the guy would not let me ignore him. “What are you reading?”

I was proud of my quick thinking. “
War and Peace
.”

“Really? Wow, I’m impressed. I don’t think I could get through something like that. Is it good?”

“It’s great.” I’m a terrible liar and I was desperate to change the subject because I could feel my face getting warm. My mind was flailing for something, anything to talk about, but running man solved the problem for me.

“You’re hot.”

What? I’m hot? Did he actually just say that?
I don’t get told things like that very often, but I knew the proper response. If someone says you’re hot and you’d like to shred their hunter-green jockstrap with your bare teeth, you say it back. “You’re pretty hot, too.”

His eyebrows did that question mark thing again. “What?”

My stomach started to cramp because sometimes your body is slightly ahead of your brain. My stomach knew that something had gone terribly, mortifyingly wrong. My brain, on the other hand, plowed ahead on the path of self-destruction and took my mouth with it. “You said I’m hot. I said you’re hot, too.”

His eyes grew wide and a little blush of color came to his cheeks. “No. I asked if you were hot because it’s June and you’re wearing a sweater.”

Please, God, make the death by duck shit quick or, fuck it, make it slow and agonizing, but let’s get started.
I opened my mouth to explain that I’d misunderstood him, closed it because he already knew that, and finally spit out, “It’s a cardigan.”

The running man was merciful. “Yeah, but cardigans
are
sweaters, right? I’ll let you get back to your book.”

He stood, walked away, and with the kindness of a saint, did not look back.

I decided it was time to go home and cut my tongue out with the rustiest pair of scissors I could find.

Chapter 2

Sassy Best Friend

I didn’t get much support when I came out of the closet
a few days before I turned sixteen. I grew up in a small, conservative town in Easter Oregon and my parents were just not prepared for the changeling that had been left on their doorstep. I didn’t get any of the dramatic “You are not my son!” speeches, I just got the cold shoulder for the next few days. It was okay, but lonely. That all changed when, on my birthday, a woman I’d never met before showed up at my party.

It was my father’s mother. She, I found out, was not actually dead as I’d been told, but was a hard-core biker lesbian who lived in Portland and called my father once a month to check whether or not he still had a stick up his “pancake of an ass.”
She walked into my sparsely attended soiree, looking like John Wayne entering a saloon, and said, “Mason, I’m your grandmother and you’re dad tells me you’re queer. Wanna come and live with me?”

It wasn’t that simple
of course, I didn’t move to Portland right away, but, after a few months of silence at home, I fled to Gran’s beefy, open arms. Things have gotten better between my parents and me since then, but they just don’t measure up to Gran. Let’s get things straight though, the old girl is no picnic. She rides a Harley, drinks like a fish, and is the most homophobic gay person I’ve ever met. I’m not saying she calls me
fag
or anything, but I’ve gotten pretty used to
candy ass
, and I will actually answer if someone calls out for
Mary.
She loves me, though, and I love her.

When I got home from the park I realized I wasn’t going to be able to engage in any self-harm right away because the place had turned into a boiling cauldron of lesbian soup with a healthy dose of butch seasoning. I waded through motorcycle helmets and discarded beer cans, trying to get to my room. I got stopped halfway there by Gran.

“How was the park, Mason? Did you get some sun?
You’re starting to look like one of those blind fish that live in caves.”

“Sure, Gran
, I got some sun. I’m just going to head to my room and…”

She let out an earth-shaking belch and then finished for me, “Read. I know you’re going to read. Why don’t you put that electronic life-sucker away and go out and do something or stay out here and have a drink?
This party needs a little nellying up and you know all the gals love you.”

The gaggle of middle-aged lesbians that took up every square inch of the room proved their love by raising their beers in unison and offering me a toast. I just shook my head and ran for my room.
Once there, I threw myself on the bed in what I think was an appropriately dramatic fashion, you know, the way only ‘50s movie divas and eight-year-old girls can do. I knew there was only way to escape the humiliation of actually thinking that the man of everyone’s dreams could think I was hot – I would have to read. I’d have to read and escape into another world where cops don’t literally mean nightstick when they say
nightstick
and
pucker
is a noun.

I fell asleep after a few pages (
Pole to Pole
was a little boring) and quickly entered a dream featuring muscular butts, pink puckers, and several yellow chicks. A chick was tickling my nose with down while the running man tickled my prostate with his…

“Mason! Wake up
! And what’s with the pup tent?”

I sat straight up and blinked at the looming shadow in my bedroom doorway. The shadow slowly morphed into Gran. She was standing there staring at me, her hands on her hips. “What?”

“Are you going to work today?”

“What?”

“Are. You. Going. To. Work. Today? It’s almost eight o’clock.”

“Oh, shit! I slept all night? I’m going to miss the bus!”

Gran shook her head. “I’ll give you a lift. What were you dreaming about, anyway? You were talking in your sleep and your willy was pointing at the ceiling.”

“Can I have a minute, please? What was I saying
?”

“Something about
baby chickens. I knew you were a pansy, but chicks? You gotta butch it up, kiddo.”

I made it to the library with five minutes to spare thanks to Gran and her souped-up Harley. She drove like a maniac, of course, and I may have peed myself just a little on the ride. I put the helmet (flaming skull decals on the sides) she’d bought me for Christmas into the hog’s trunk and gave Gran a kiss on the cheek. She laughed and shook her head as she roared away.

I raced up the library steps, through the lobby, past the assignment board (
yeah, the stacks again) and slid into my seat at 9 o’clock on the dot. I smoothed down my hair, adjusted my khakis and straightened my hunter-green cardigan (no, smartass, I didn’t notice the significance at the time.) I’d had thirteen hours of sleep and half a banana for breakfast, I was ready to start the day.

I love my job. I love almost everyone I work with. The library was the place I was meant to end up and I did. I know you think you know how the library runs and you’ve probably got a pretty good idea, but, just in case… That nice little lady who checks your books out? She’s probably not a librarian.
She’s probably a library clerk who’s been assigned to the circulation desk. The actual librarians at the library are usually working in some office somewhere behind the scenes or at the reference desk. Or the librarian might be working in “the stacks.”

The stacks are where we keep all the old books that no one reads anymore. I work the stacks a lot. It’s on the boring side (I know, I know, what’s the exciting side of the library?) but can be pretty interesting, too. I sit in a cubicle just outside the stacks and if a patron is looking for some old, obscure book, they bring me a little slip of paper with the book’s title and I go and find it for them. That’s where things can get a little exciting.

One day a little old lady came and asked my name, saying she couldn’t read my nametag. I told her and reached for the little slip of paper she held, but she put it behind her back. It seemed she wanted to chat before giving it up. Fine with me. We chatted about our matching cardigans (the fact that I dress like a little old lady was not lost on me) and we chatted about how the Portland weather bothered her bones. We talked for a long while about her husband and how much she’d grown to hate him over the years. Then, since I guessed I’d earned her trust, she handed me her slip of paper. It was for a book on exotic poisons. I got her the book and spent the next few weeks scanning the obituaries for every old man that had died. So, yes, folks I may be an accomplice to murder. Don’t say there’s no excitement at the library.

The reference desk is really the place to be, though, if you’re looking to be in the action-packed, no-holds-barred, bullet-dodging, section of the library. That’s the place everyone comes when they’ve got a question. You help them find out all about macramé, the best place to go on vacation, what the hell’s wrong with their cat, and, in a whisper, you tell the nervous looking kid where the “gay” books are found. I love the reference desk.

I settled in for a long, lonely day in the stacks by firing up my e-reader and finishing
Pole to Pole (not recommended.)
Then I started
Get Along, Little Doggie
, a very promising book about a hot Montana rancher and a cattle dog shifter. I was a little annoyed because the author didn’t seem to know that, in this case,
doggies
are cows, but the romance was scorching so I ignored the lack of research. I was thoroughly engrossed by the time the sassy best friend you knew I was going to have showed up to take me to lunch.

“Ready for lunch, lover?” Twyla asked as she glided up to my cubicle.
She’s a cute little number with suspiciously nice breasts and red hair that does not exist in nature. She was wearing a very short flamingo-pink dress and a feathered headband. She looked like she was on her way to a 1920’s prom. Twyla is a librarian, too, but she’s a bit of an outcast. Librarians aren’t supposed to be sluts and Twyla is a total whore (I’m not talking behind her back, believe me, she knows and so do the good folks at the STD clinic.)

“Ready,” I said, walking out of my cubicle without taking my eyes off my e-reader. The Little Doggie was just about to lift his tail
and…

“Put that stupid thing down, asshole! You didn’t even notice my dress.”

I still didn’t look up. “Your dress is pink and you’re wearing a matching feather headband. You look ridiculous.”

“Oh, sweetheart, thanks for noticing.
”

“No problem,” I said, still not looking.

“Leave that thing here, Mason. I’m not going to get ignored through another lunch.”

“But…”

“Leave it here!”

“Okay
. Jesus!” I locked the e-reader in my desk and followed Twyla to the staff lounge. We found an empty table and dug into our matching chicken salads.

Twyla was in a bit of a huff. “I can’t believe you don’t like my dress. I bought it for you.”

“I don’t do drag.”

“No, but I thought you’d like it for its… fabulousness.”

“Sorry, Twyla, but you’re barking up the wrong gay.”

She stuck out her lower lip. “Don’t I know it? I mean, are you even really gay?”

I sighed. “Of course I’m gay. I’ve got something up my butt right now.”

Twyla’s eyes widened in shock and her lips spread into a delighted grin. “You do? Oh, my God! What is it? Is it like a… place holder?”

I shook my head and laughed into my hand. “There’s nothing up my butt. A placeholder? You’re nuts.”

Now she really was pissed. “That’s not funny! I thought you’d actually gone and done something interesting for once. I mean it, I don’t think you’re gay at all. I think you’re a Norman
Batesy shut-in who lives with his grandmother. Someday I’m going to come over there and find out you’ve killed her and spend your nights wearing her motorcycle helmet.”

“Twyla,” I said with a little ice, “I think that headband is squeezing your brain a little too hard. If anyone dies in that house it’ll be me. I’ll be smothered under a pile of middle-aged lesbians.”

“Well at least that would mean something interesting had happened to you. You should think of me once in a while. I mean what’s the point of having a gay best friend if he doesn’t act gay? You don’t travel, you don’t dress particularly well, you don’t work out, and you don’t tell great stories about sodomy. Basically, you’re a waste of gayness.”

A waste of gayness? Wow.
“Let’s change the subject before one of us gets hurt. Did I tell you I’m reading a book about a cattle drive? It’s amaz….”

Twyla held up her hand.
“When’s the last time you got laid?”

No one ever spoke above a whisper in the staff lounge
, but I felt the need to shush her anyway. I gave her my best librarian frown and put one finger to my lips. It works every time. We librarians are like practitioners of Jedi mind-control when it comes to shushing.

Her voice even lower, she continued, “Well, how long has it been? I’m worried about you, sweetie. How long since you broke up with Glen?”

Ah, Glen, you donkey-dicked bastard, just when I forget you existed, somebody brings you up. Glen was my one and only long-term boyfriend and he had driven me even further into Book Land than I’d been before. He’d cheated on me with the regularity of a Swiss watch (if Swiss watches were soul-sucking, back-alley whores.)

It had actually been a year since I’d finally broken up with Glen
. I’d moved in with him after two dates (I would have made a great lesbian) and things had gone downhill quickly. How well I remembered our last morning together. He’d woken me early one morning by hitting me in the face with his cock and demanding a before-work blowjob. Since he’d been out all night without me and the dick he’d just assaulted me with smelled of eau de lubricant, I’d refused to open my mouth. I’d given his balls a twist I hoped he was still feeling and headed back to Gran’s.

“Don’t talk about Glen.”

“Okay, I won’t talk about Glen. How long since you’ve been with anyone that doesn’t live in a book?”

She’d scored a point and I could tell that she knew it by the smug look on her face. I considered throwing my chicken salad at her but quickly decided that wouldn’t be gentlemanly. I settled for reminding her that she was a bitch.

“Bitch? That’s the best you’ve got? The last defense of a man with no defense is to call a woman a bitch. How long, Mason?”

I was getting desperate, so I tried lying. “As a matter of fact I met someone at the park yesterday.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

She looked hopeful. “What happened?”

“He stopped at the bench I was using to stretch
after his run. We hit it off and I took him home and fucked him.”

Twyla clapped her hands in fag hag delight. “Really? Oh, my God. Details.”

“He was tall and gorgeous – just about perfect. He was wearing a hunter-green jockstrap the whole time. It clashed a little with his pink no-no, but I didn’t let that stop me. I held him in my arms afterwards and he begged to see me again.”