breakfast at tiffany's, chapter one

Meryl Streep is punishing me for having gay sex. Amen.

Author’s note: because it has always been my intention to keep this site somewhat PG-13, for the duration of this post I have made the executive decision to replace the term “gay sex” with “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

I am writing to you now from an expensive round of antibiotics and a neck that is covered in boils. The pharmacist says that I am not supposed to consume any coffee or alcohol while taking this drug, but I am not about to give up breakfast and dinner. There is a plague upon my studio apartment and I can tell you exactly the reason why: I am having Breakfast at Tiffany’s and lots of it.

Now, typically I associate good things with being flipped over but this pancake has been burned one too many times. The unfortunate truth is that Meryl Streep has never looked fondly on me putting my homosexuality in to practice. Ever since I first laid hands on another man at the young age of 22, I have been the target of fire and brimstone falling out of the sky. But this time she has gone too far, and like Anne Hathaway in the The Devil Wears Prada, I am starting to feel the heat.

My dissension to infection began last Monday night at my girlfriend Joy’s place. After a lovely evening of red wine, cheese plates and Ella Fitzgerald, I begged her to accompany me to the gay bar so that I could put the sex in our relationship. She and I both knew very well, a boy on the side is the key to any succesful straight woman - gay male relationship. And so true to form, she had a gentelman caller of her own who was scheduled to drop by later that evening.  

“Come on,” I said egging her on, “it will be fun!”

“How many times have I heard that line before?”

It was true,  the last time I convinced her to come out to the gay bar with me she ended up with a 24 hour self-esteem complex after no one offered to buy her a drink.

"Plus sweetie," she carried on, "you know how much I’d love to help but the French Connection is coming over in thirty minutes and I have yet to prepare another cheese plate."  

After ten minutes passed and she still showed no signs of moving, I began to suspect that my sex life was not motivation enough for her to leave the warmth of her apartment. I knew that desperate times called for desperature measures, and so, in one bold move I poured the rest of the open wine on the table into my empty glass and proceeded to down it in one sip. I chugged it like it was a king-size can of Lucky and I was in high school just about to fool around with a girl.

"What do you know?" I said, wiping the fermented grape juice from my lips. "You are out of booze. Now let's go out and I will buy you a drink."

Joy stared at me in disbelief. My actions could only be considered as alcohol abuse and she and I both knew it. What can I say, the only thing worse than a desperate gay man is a desperate gay man in heat.

"You have thirty minutes," she said, "now pass me my jacket." 

Because Joy lives in the heart of the gay village, it only took us three minutes to walk to the bar. At my suggestion, we arrived a trendy lounge called 1181 at quarter passed midnight. "Any other venue," I reasoned, "would be a waste of our outfits." 1181 is known for its shirtless bartenders and weekend drink specials. On Friday and Saturday nights, the bar turns in to a total meat market as men from in and outside Vancouver line up to show themselves off. Since it is shaped like a London townhouse, breathing room is limited; but luckily, what it lacks in girth it makes up for in length.

Because it was Monday night Joy and I had no problems getting in. As we walked through the front door, I could smell the unmistakeable scent of Dolce & Gabanna in the air and knew I was home. On the speakers, a hit remix by Kaskade was playing in to its seventeenth minute. It was not busy by any means, but luckily there were enough men sitting at the bar to give me some ounce of hope.

"Isn't it wonderful?" I asked Joy, stealing a line from Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's, "how nothing bad could happen to you in a place like this?”

“Of course darling, but isn’t this the same bar that you thought you were drugged by that Canadian soldier last year?”

 “Ohmygod I totally forgot about that. Bad things do happen in a place like this.”

By the time we reached the bar, it did not take a magnifying glass to realize there were less diamonds than rough. From antique closet-cases to over-polished muscle daddies, I was notably disenchanted by the selection of men available.

“I guess going home alone isn’t the worst thing that could happen,” I whispered in Joy’s ear, “Macaulay Culkin seemed to make a pretty good go of it.”

“I’m sorry love, now let’s get that drink you owe me and get out of here.”

Just when I thought all hope was gone, the most gorgeous man walked through the door. He had olive skin, brown eyes and a great jaw line. He was also thirty years younger than the rest of the men sitting in the bar. Dressed in second-hand blue jeans with no-name shoes and a white American Apparel T, he was just the rock I was looking for.

"Joy," I said. I could barely breathe and and as a result, had to limit my words to one syllable. "Look... over... there."

She knew exactly who I was talking about and sighed relief that she was off the hook.

"Does this mean I can go?"

"Yes."

"You know you still owe me a drink though right?"

"Yes."

"You will be careful, right?"

"Yes."

"Promise?"

"Yes."

"Love you."

"Yes."

She kissed me on the cheek and made her way for the door. As she passed the man in question, she whipped her head back and mouthed the word "hot."

I took a seat at the bar and crossed my fingers that he would sit down beside me. When he did, I had no clue what to do next. It is no secret I am much more confident behind a keyboard than I am in front of another man.

"Hello," he said, showing off his smile.

"Hi," I replied, still on the monosyllabic streak.

"How are you?"

"Well." It is always important to be grammatically correct, especially when you cannot form a full sentence.

I figured I needed a drink to loosen me up, and so I strung enough words together to ask him if I could order one too.

"Can ... I ... buy ... you ... a ... drink?" I sounded like Colin Firth in The King's Speech but something told me I was not going to win an Oscar for this performance.  

"Sure," he acquiesced, "Double Petron Silver on the rocks."

I reached in to my pocket and pulled out a ten dollar bill. I placed it on the bar in front of him and said, "this is all I got."

 “A Kokanee will be fine,” he smiled.

One drink led to another and before I knew it, it was ten o’clock in the morning and he was lying naked in bed beside me.

Dear Reader(s),

It was not my intention to divide this post but it is running up 10,000 words and I figured at the rate I am writing, it might be July before you see another update on here. Will get straight to work editing Chapter Two but here is a sneak peek.

"With my left hand covering my mouth, I turned back on the light and muted my next scream. I could not take my eyes off the atrocity that had emblazoned its scarlet mark across my face. For a moment I entertained the possibility that it might be a pimple, but ruled out that prognosis due to the fact that Monday nights are always green tea facial nights and I never forget to apply a mask. This was clearly something Proactiv did not have a solution for. It was burning ring of fire sent from Meryl Steep herself, and my complexion was on the brink of collapse."

Lots of love, R.F.

The Emasculation of Rugged Fox

The other night at work, the dark chocolate bartender accused me of being heterosexual.

The entire situation went down as I was polishing wine glasses with a little too much vigour. Pride week had just ended the night before and intrigued, the gorgeous drink dispenser asked me what kind of debaucherous all-night sex fests I had got myself in the middle of.

Resting the wine glass down on the counter before I snapped it in half, I admitted to him the inconvenient truth that, each night of the festivities I had gone to bed with a girl.

“Heterosexual!” he exclaimed, pointing his wine crank at me, violently.

“Ah!” I screamed, taking one step back, girlishly.

"How dare he call me straight!"Horrified I stood frozen behind the bar. For a second I thought I was going to be tarred and feathered, and then for another second I wondered whether I’d actually enjoy it. His eyes piercing mine, his wine crank still pointing at me (violently), I feared my cork was going to be popped unless I defended my gay honour. And so having run out of time I did the one thing I know best - I raised the white polishing rag in my hand up above my head and submitted.

Arriving home later that night at a feverish twelve o’clock, I felt a wave of anger surge over me. Shooting back a 10 ounce glass of red wine to calm myself, I started pacing around the three-square-feet of free space in my apartment also known as my living room.

“How dare he call me straight!” I hissy-ed, “especially after I just spent two c-notes on this pair of jeans to ensure there would be no confusion.”

Continuing to fit, I polished off the rest of the bottle of wine and proceeded directly to my fridge to pop open a night cap. Reaching for a lone bottle of beer, I screamed when I realized what I was about to do. Slapping myself on the hand, I thought, this is no time for masculinity, and grabbed a raspberry vodka cooler instead.

Taking one sip of the fruity beverage, I began to feel emasculated again when I noticed a horrific site hanging on my walls.

Filling the empty space just above my desk were four picture frames. Four picture frames of terror. Aghast, I tugged my eyes from one 5x10 to the next. Each photograph featured a reproduction of me standing beside a gorgeous woman. Taking another sip from my drink, I could barely breathe when it hit me that, to date, the greatest relationships in my life have been with, dare I say it, dare I use another comma, women.

My head so light it could float away, my body so heavy it could fall through the floor, I moved out of the kitchen and into my bedroom and collapsed upon my twelve-hundred-thread-count Ralph Lauren sheets. My vision bursting into a million stars, I rubbed my eyes and saw the thought shoot cross my mind, I am the worst homosexual I know.

Falling to the floor, I got up on my knees and cried out to the heaven’s above, “Oh Meryl Streep! Could it be that I left one closet for another?”

For six years now, I have been trying to get to the bottom of (tee hee) what defines a gay man. If the number one marker is sexual intercourse, then I am afraid I am out.

It is no big secret that as far as same-sex-sex goes, I do not have a lot of it.  (Editor's note: It is no small secret either.) The fact that I will be able to donate blood again soon does not bode well for my gay reputation. Truth is, while the hockey team was busy sleeping with each other in high school, I was trading Spice Girl stickers with my first girlfriend and asking her how 2 did become 1.

Before I depress myself into a state of vagina relapse, I have some good news to report. Ever since I moved out to the West Coast fourteen months ago, I have managed to get to the bottom of at least one thing (tee hee – alright that is enough). After gossiping with my fair share of boys and girls in this province, I have learned that it is not who you sleep with that defines you; it is what the other person says about you the next day to their flaming best friend over coffee that really counts.