Page 47 of Drag Me Up

“Thought you had better taste, Barnes. Hanging with a snitch and a fairy boy. Never thought I’d see the day.” Turning his attention to my friends, he pushes his luck. “You boys gonna offer up more lies about how the faggot wasn’t begging for it that night? Rafe and the guys told me he was a tight little thing. Think they popped his cherry that night?”

Before any of us could launch ourselves at him, the door opens and Eric walks out looking pale and shaky. Pushing away from the guys, I hurry to pull him into my arms, the asshole forgotten for the moment.

“It’s over,” I whisper to him as I clutch him tighter. “You never have to do this again.”

Pushing me back, he gives me a sad smile. “Actually, I’m going to have to do it again in two years. He was denied parole when a few members of the board noticed him getting … erm…excitedthe more worked up I got.”

I am going to ignore that last part for the sake of mysanity based on the obvious disgust on Eric’s face. Grabbing his cheeks, I can’t hide my excitement. “He got denied?”

Eric nods as much as my hands will let him and his smile shines like the sun breaking through the clouds. Grabbing him around the waist, I lift him up to twirl him around.

“I’m so proud of you, Sparkles,” I tell him when I set him back down.

A snort from behind me pulls my attention back to the asshole who owns the house where this nightmare took place. “You got a problem, Streaker?”

Eric steps around me and looks him up and down while the man is busy staring me down.

“You’re Andrew Streaker?” my cutie asks him with a bite to his voice. “Youare the asshat who owns that crack house rat trap where I was raped?”

“You can’t rape the willing,” Streaker spits at Eric and I want to throttle him. No one has the right to speak to anyone like that, especially my boy.

Before anyone can move, Eric starts laughing hysterically, holding onto my arm in a vice grip to keep from falling to the floor. I swear it takes minutes for him to stop laughing because every time he seems to get ahold of himself, he looks around the room and cracks up again.

“Come on Sparkles. Let the rest of us in on the joke.”

Pointing at Streaker, Eric struggles to get his breathing even enough to speak. “This guy was one ofmy regular booty calls a few years ago, before I instituted my no repeats rule,” he spits out between hiccups.

Streaker starts backing away, shaking his head, but the rest of us are looking between the two of them in confusion. One of the guards looks like he wishes he had some popcorn based on the eager look on his face.

“I didn’t recognize him,” Eric gasps out as he’s mostly back to normal. “I broke off our arrangement when he confessed he loved me and wanted to act out his rape fantasy.”

“Did he know your past?” Donnie asks incredulously, but Eric shakes his head in answer.

“It wouldn’t have been my first round of CNC, but I didn’t dofeelingswith my arrangements. I told him where to find a good dildo,” Eric chuckles and waggles his eyebrows. “Iwasn’t the bottom in our arrangement.”

Streaker turns whiter than the dress shirt he’s wearing before running for the exit. Meanwhile, Eric dissolves back into his uncontrollable laughter. Looking at the other guys, I shrug and hoist my boy into my arms to carry him out. Donnie grabs our coats while Spencer gets the door. The voyeur guard gives me a wink as we walk past, and I shake my head in exasperation.

I figured I would end up with my boy’s tears soaking my shirt today. I never expected they would be tears of laughter.

EPILOGUE

ERIC

Two months later:

Going to a pride event with others is a completely new concept for me. Over the last few years, I managed to come either by myself or as part of the show when the Monarch Room was asked to perform or march. Every time I’ve come, I almost felt like I was obligated to be there just because I’m gay as fuck. I had pride in the life I had built for myself, but I never felt like I belonged among the happy, cheerful throngs of people.

The thing most people don’t recognize when it comes to Pride events is that these celebrations are a falsehood for some of us. People on the outside see the colorful outfits, the flashy dancing, and the rainbows and they think that there is no purpose to these parades and celebrations outside of being gay as fuck. Hell, even I didn’t understand what there really was to celebrate until this year.

After my first pride when I snuck out at fifteen, each year I come to Pride in the city, I seek out the older guys. I always thought, if anyone would understand why I don’t want to celebrate, they would. I heard their stories. I heard about their lovers lost to the AIDS epidemic of the eighties and nineties. They regaled me with tales about their families abandoning them, the forced marriages and children born to satisfy the archaic belief that a man’s duty is to procreate…

They faced so much. They lost so much. And yet they are still here forty years later with smiles on their faces, cheering on the younger generations that will hopefully never know their pain and struggle. Those men’s stories kept me going many times over the last five years. They survived. They thrived. They gave me the strength to see another tomorrow. From them, I knew that my brighter tomorrow might take years or decades, but it was coming.

Those men saved my life and will never even know it.

This year for Pride in the City, I have the weekend off. I made a managerial decision and closed the Monarch Room so that we can all enjoy the events in the city this weekend. It was tough for Clarence to accept that I wanted to close down completely for the weekend, but with his wedding coming up next month, he doesn’t have the time to argue with me when he knows I’m right.

I’m a bit nervous to be here with the rest of the guys from Kink Manor. This is the first time I’m sharing this part of me with them. Mattie was right. It’s time I finallyopen up to them. His coming back into my life helped to slay my dragons and woke up my heart, like a super gay Sleeping Beauty. It’s time for my friends to meet the real me and the special men who truly saved me over the years.

---