September’s Always Gorgeous

September’s Always Gorgeous By Michael P. Thomas One eye flutters open. A blade of light slices through the blinds. The eye crumples shut. Which means I’m alive. Which means I am, in fact, going to have to slog through this hangover. I’d cry, but I’m too dehydrated for tears. I manage a whimper, and I beg my brain to please go back to sleep. For days, if possible. I blame Gunther Choi. And rightly so. Some best friend. “I’d be down for one beer,” I’d said. “Two at the most, then I’m going home.” “Yeah yeah.” Which he thinks means I hear you, but actually means I’m ignoring what you just said. Sure, I could have told him No. But he was driving and right by our favorite taproom. I wasn’t going to demand he take me home. Like maybe Netflix would start Bob’s Burgers without me? It was a fine Friday afternoon, warm for October; a beer sounded great. The second beer, cold and tart, was a fine idea. Even the third beer was not, in and of itself, a disaster, except for the way it made swinging by The Manhole for a fourth one sound like fun. And The Manhole was fun. Big beers, big dudes; after a couple shots, nobody cares who you kiss, and Gunther loves buying shots. He was in no condition to drive, but stumbling the seven blocks to The Roundup was perfectly manageable, and he has a crush on, well, pretty much every bartender there, so off we staggered. It’s not like I needed a whole pitcher of beer to myself; I certainly had no business drinking the second one, but Gunther needed reasons to barrage the bar. “Ain’t it the whole point of that big belly, to put beer in it?” After midnight on a Friday, every drunken queer in Denver is crammed into the Roundup, and after a million beers, most of ‘em are pretty hot. At which point, I get a little handsy. With Gunther off batting his eyelashes at bartenders, a guy’s gotta do something, and if the burly, bearded ginger in the kilt’s gonna invite me to keep tugging on his n****e rings, guess what I’m gonna keep tugging on… I bummed a smoke offa some ex-jock, another off a seven-foot-tall drag queen. I haven’t smoked in fifteen years, but my impulse control was pretty relaxed by then. Which probably explains the make-out session with the ex-jock in question. And the make-out session with the drag queen. It certainly explains the make-out session with the college-age twink. I’m surprised he didn’t call security, guy twice his age slides his tongue down his throat and a finger in his butthole in line for the bathroom. He was mighty cute, though. You know, probably… I’m never drinking again. Except water. God, I’d kill for a glass of water. A bucket, a jug; there’s a Siamese fighting fish in a little bowl on top of my dresser…I’d just go to the dang kitchen, but when I try to lift my head off the pillow, someone smashes it with a brick. Not actually, of course, although now that you mention it, it does sound like there might be someone else in the house. It doesn’t sound like one of my hangover groans, anyway. I’ve lived by myself since I kicked Trey’s user ass out. I never did get his key back, but he’s also been dead for three years. Not that I’d put a revenge haunting past him, but when I hear the toilet flush, I’m pretty sure it’s not the ghost of my ex. I whimper again. This can’t be pretty. I have no recollection of bringing anybody home, and zero memory of what we may or may not have gotten up to. I hear his footsteps on the hardwood in the hall. Moving away from the bedroom, thank the Lord. Toward the front door? With the beer goggles I was wearing last night, it’s not hard to figure I’m gonna be better off if whatever the cat did manage to drag in tiptoes off into the sunrise. What I never know—or, you know, see—isn’t gonna hurt me. I hear the kitchen sink run. The torturous bastard. Maybe it is Trey. This reminder that there’s water in the world that I’m not drinking hurts my throat; I feel my eyes shriveling drier in their sockets. Fine, I think. Have your little drink, and then please go home. Footfalls again. Coming up the hall. As in, away from the door. I groan. I burrow under the covers. I feel the weight of someone sitting on the side of the bed. Definitely not Trey; he was barely big enough to dent the mattress when he was alive, skinny little s**t. I hold my breath. If he thinks I’m dead under here, then he’ll have to leave, right? What the hell kind of one night stand would stay in a strange house with a dead guy? “D—” That’s as much as he can croak out before he clears his throat. I brace for the worst. I’m never drinking again. Gunther Choi is dead to me. “Do you want some water?” His voice is low, heavy, and thick. Which is apparently what angels sound like: did he really just say “water?” For water, I might just open my eyes. It would even be worth sitting up for, although when I try, I do consider asking him to just splash me in the face. Whoever he is. But I gotta have it. I struggle to prop myself suitably upright. He laughs at the effort. I’m in okay shape for forty-four—my belly’s only “big” compared to the pancake on Gunther, who’s built like a bullwhip—but I also apparently slept underneath a steam roller. So yeah, there’s some grunting involved. I haul one eyelid up as far as it’ll go—Jesus, it’s bright in here. I extend my shaking hand, whimper with relief as it closes around a cool, wet glass. “I feel pretty rugged, too,” he croaks. I roll my available eye at the understatement. I quaff the water. I drip some down my chin in my rush to get it all in. He laughs again. “You want some more?” I collapse onto my pillow. He correctly interprets this as a Yes, please, and pads off to the kitchen. I open both eyes—it’s a healing miracle!—at the sound of his return, watch the tall glass of water make its way across the room to my hand, itching in anticipation. The glass of water is all I see. I don’t see his square, solid chest; I don’t see the ridges on his snug, flat tummy or the outline of his quads on his long thighs; I don’t see the high, round snowballs of his paper-white butt when he plops down beside me, or the ropy veins in his forearm when he hands me the glass. Well, okay, maybe I do see all those things—my unfurling d**k is calling me a liar—but I’m focused on the glass of water. Because his face is mortifying. What the f**k was I thinking? The dopey grin, the overgrown mop of honey-colored hair, the square, pimple-pocked chin—fine, he’s gorgeous, but he’s a kid. A puppy, still growing into his floppy ears and his giant paws, never mind the size of his kickstand. (Had I been able to take all that? Geeze, go me. No wonder I can’t move.) I groan again. The grin gets impossibly wider. He says, “Good morning,” and hands me the water. I smile—gratitude and a greeting—and gulp at it as I try desperately to rouse my memory. He has a body like a comic book super hero, laughably muscled and lean. And legal, I fervently pray, although with a d**k like that, he’s nobody’s boy. Of all the f***s not to remember. He sets a hand on my shoulder. It’s hot. Like he just pulled it from a smithy’s furnace with tongs. My mind may be a useless blank, but my body surges to life at the memory of his touch; I can feel the nerve endings in my feet, my back, my middle, reaching and straining, touch me next! My d**k snaps to attention. My hole contracts in fright, even as my insides quiver with hope. Can we, please, huh, can we? My prostate grovels. Quiet, all of you—let me think! “You were right.” He’s a talker. “That was fun.” He makes a show of waggling his eyebrows. I smile. I have no idea what I promised him—he must be the twink from the bathroom line? Maybe I’ll recognize his clothes—but I guess I’m glad I delivered. Taking in his body—and its apparent enthusiasm—I figure I must have had some kind of fun, too. Like what’s your worst-case scenario in bed with a body like this? He moves his hand from my shoulder, slides it under the covers and starts kneading my ass. “You wanna go again?” I cough out a laugh. My head feels like maybe it split open and my brain is dripping out; my body feels like maybe someone replaced my blood with concrete during the night and it’s beginning to set; my vision is blurry and my stomach is twisted and empty. And I help him slide the covers off me because when he palms my ass and says “again,” my libido ignites like a grease fire. He takes the glass from me and sets it on the floor, rolls on a condom with an eager grin. If bringing home some twenty-two year-old 3D anatomy chart from the bar was a mistake, well, I’ve already made it. No harm in making it again before he calls Uber.