ROB BECK | 7.23.2008
“COME HERE. THERE’S something back here you have to see,” Sam said as he led me behind the bouncy castle.
“What is it?” I asked, stumbling along behind my new friend. I was at a pool party, an annual bash known equally for its Disney princess bouncy castle and the debauchery that happens inside it after dark. Given that it was still light out, I assumed I was safe.
“You have to see it first,” he said as he continued to tug on my wrist. “It would ruin the surprise if I told you.”
Apparently, that ploy only works on small children about to be kidnapped and drunk gay boys in tiny bathing suits, because I bought it and allowed myself to be led past the smiling faces of Snow White, Ariel and Sleeping Beauty — and away from the rest of the party.
We arrived at our destination, and I looked around, seeing nothing but greenery and, off to the side, inebriated partygoers teetering on the edge of a deck as they urinated into a fishpond.
“What am I supposed to be looking for?” I asked, peering into the woods for something out of the ordinary.
“This,” he said, whipping out his junk and pointing it at me. “Kiss it.”
“I’m sorry?” I said, torn between staring at his surprisingly pretty penis and making sure the urinating drunks hadn’t taken notice. Luckily, they were busy trying not to fall in.
“Don’t be sorry,” he said, pulling me toward him and trying to push my head down. “Just kiss it.”
My friend Nate says I have impulse control issues. According to him, whenever I see something I want, I get it, with no regard to the consequences. To an extent, he’s right.
Exhibit A is my extensive collection of DVDs that I saw in the store and, for that moment at least, could not live without. To be fair, who really needs to own “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle”?
Exhibit B is the nice pair of shoes I ruined the mutiple times I decided the best way to get home from Blake’s was to walk. Exhibit C is the exhausted days at work after midnight screenings of new movies I just couldn’t wait to see.
And probably the most incriminating is Exhibit D: the guys I’ve made out with and probably shouldn’t have. Which is why it should come as no surprise that when I told Nate the Disney story up to that point, he assumed I did what Sam asked.
“Bitch, I hope that when you stood up from shaming yourself behind that bouncy castle, that all of the Disney princesses dripped scorn from those over-sized eyes,” he said.
“But—“ I tried to interrupt.
“Why did you even go back there in the first place? ‘I want to show you something’? You never follow a man that says that. It’s like helping him find his ‘lost puppy.’”
“Nate—“
“‘Don’t get into the van, Rob!’”
“I didn’t do it!” I finally said.
“Oh,” Nate said after a pause, sounding disappointed. “Well, why not?”
OK, I knew something would happen back there; I was drunk, not stupid. But I figured it would be more along the lines of a quick make out session, and then back to the party.
What led to my refusal and turned me off was the sense that this was his way of exerting power over me, with a complete lack of respect.
“I’m a Leo,” I said to Nate. “We’re proud. We won’t be degraded, at least not in public and without the promise of something equally fun in return.”
“Have you no sense of romance?” he said. “I mean, just think of the sultry, humid air, the hum of the motor keeping the bouncy castle inflated, the drunk whores peeing in the fishpond, and Sam, asking for a kiss, on his penis.”
“Why is this my life?” I asked.
“Because you don’t live in a Jane Austen movie,” he said. “Which is fine, because you would look terrible in a corset.”
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