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  “I was fourteen,” Gabriel said. “My parents never found out. But if they knew what I was doing, I suppose they would’ve put me on a short leash.”

  “Weren’t you worried about getting the girl pregnant? The way my mom talks, getting a girl pregnant would ruin my entire future.”

  “That’s not something I worry about,” Gabriel said. “I’m gay. I used to have a boyfriend named Coty.” When he mentioned Coty, a sad look crossed his face.

  “Aren’t you two together anymore?”

  Gabriel shook his head as the sad look returned. “He died in a car accident. A drunk driver hit the car he was in – he was a passenger. That’s one reason I came to America. I needed to go somewhere else. I loved him. I still love him. He’s an angel now.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Derek said. “I hope I love somebody that much someday. You said that was one reason you came here. Is there another reason?”

  “Yes!” His expression perked up. “I want to attend college in this country. I’d love to live here someday. Do you know yet where you’ll be going to college?”

  “No, not yet,” Derek said. “Maybe we’ll go to the same one.” He looked at Gabriel and was about to say something, but then he stopped. After a minute of hesitation, he finally said, “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  “When did you realize you were gay?”

  “I’ve always been gay,” Gabe said. “I like having girls for friends, but I’ve never felt romantic toward a girl. When I first saw Coty, I was immediately curious about him. I wanted to know everything there was to know about him. He fascinated me.”

  Derek nodded. “I know what you mean. I enjoy talking to girls, but I’ve never had feelings for any of them. I might like the way they’ve applied their makeup, but I don’t want to check out their bodies. I don’t want to smother them with kisses.”

  Gabriel nodded. “Have you checked out a guy’s body? Do you ever feel like smothering a guy with kisses?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.”

  “You’ve never thought about it … or you’ve never let yourself think about it?”

  “The second one, definitely,” Derek said. “Sometimes I feel like I’m not taking part in life. It’s like everyone’s playing the game except me. I watch what’s going on, but I don’t interact. I always have to stay a safe distance away.” He looked in the popcorn bowl. “All done, except for some kernels. But don’t make more on my account. I’m full.”

  “Life is like a game. But you have to figure out how to play it. If you don’t do anything, nothing happens.”

  “That sounds about right.” Derek looked at Gabriel, smiling. Then he leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “There! I did something. My first kiss!”

  Gabriel, in turn, leaned toward Derek and kissed him on the lips. “If you’re going to have a first kiss, do it right. Save a kiss on the cheek for your grandma.”

  It was getting late, so Derek decided that he’d better head home. They’d already set up their rehearsal schedule for the week, so they’d be seeing each other the next day.

  - - -

  Derek enjoyed the rehearsals for A Midsummer Night’s Dream – both at the high school and in Gabriel’s attic.

  His relationship with Gabriel did not escalate after the kiss. Neither of them was looking for an epic romance. After all, Derek still lived with his parents and Gabriel would eventually be returning to France. But, the thrill Derek felt in Gabriel’s presence was enough to make him realize that he was most definitely gay.

  The Shakespeare production was a success, and a real confidence-booster for Derek. Many of the other performers told him, they never would’ve guessed this was his first acting gig. Being in the play also allowed him to spend more time away from home. As a result, his parents started to relax their control over him. This was a good time for such a development, since he would eventually be leaving home for college.

  Derek was sad when Gabriel needed to return to France, but they decided to keep in touch through email, and perhaps even attend the same college someday.

  Derek went on to perform in more school and community productions. He also started doing modeling and loved working with regional department stores. Sometimes his parents were concerned about his decisions, since they knew little about theater and fashion, but his newfound confidence enabled him to overcome most of their objections.

  Even so, one night at dinner, his mother confronted him about his work. “I don’t know if I like you doing all this fancy modeling work. It’ll make you conceited. You’re going to start thinking that you’re so good-looking, other people can go to hell.”

  His father shook his head. “Chloe, you’re missing the big picture. You’ve seen the checks he’s been pulling in. That modeling work pays well. I hate to say it, honey, but you’re jealous of him. That’s because he has a small nose and you don’t. A good mother shouldn’t be jealous of her own son. You should be happy for him.”

  Chloe was instantly infuriated. “What a terrible thing to say! People have always hated me because of my nose and you know it!”

  “No, they haven’t!” Scott said, aggravated. “For years, you’ve been complaining about your nose, and now you’re using this ridiculous fixation of yours as a reason to keep our boy from being successful. No one has any opinion of your nose except you. I don’t want to hear another word about your nose until you either see a psychiatrist or a plastic surgeon. Or both!”

  Chloe burst into tears. “I don’t need to see any so-called expert to know that nobody loves me.”

  “Nobody?” Scott said. “If nobody loves you, then why did I marry you? Why do I take you out for a lobster dinner on our anniversary every year? Maybe you’re the one who doesn’t love me.”

  Chloe put her arms around her husband. “I love you. You know I love you. I’m sorry, honey.”

  “I love you, Mom,” Derek said. “I don’t even think about your nose. When I look at you, I just see you. The whole person.”

  “I know.” Chloe smiled sadly at her son. “You’ve always been a good boy. I’m sorry I’m such a mess.”

  Scott shook his head again. “You say you’re sorry today, honey, but you’ve said that before. Many times before. At least think about seeing a plastic surgeon someday, okay?” He turned to Derek. “You can do all the modeling you want. No one in this house is going to stop you.”

  When it came time to pick a college, Derek decided on Bancroft University, which had offered him a substantial academic scholarship. More to the point, he wanted to go there because Gabriel, who was older, was already enrolled there. Derek took a wide range of College Level Examination Program, or CLEP, tests and was able to earn credit for most introductory level courses. Thanks to the tests, he was practically a sophomore when he arrived.

  Gabriel lived, along with other students, in a rented house off-campus. The cost of a room was reasonable, and Derek was happy to learn the house currently had a vacancy, and he could move in at his convenience. The other tenants in the house, Gabriel told him, were two quiet guys who kept to their rooms on the ground floor. Derek’s room was right next to Gabriel’s on the top floor.

  Derek’s first day in the house was like a dream come true. It was a Saturday, so he had the whole weekend to settle in and spend time with Gabriel. His friend led him to his new room, which included a closet and a private bathroom. It also came with a bed, a bookcase, a dresser, a desk with a matching chair, and a table with two chairs. The roommates shared the downstairs living room, kitchen, and laundry room.

  Derek unpacked his suitcases and began putting away his clothes in dresser drawers and the closet. “So has anything changed since you’ve come here?” he asked Gabriel.

  “Yes!” his friend said merrily. “I’m no longer Gabriel!”

  “You’re using an alias now?” Derek said with a grin. “Did you do something unspeakable?”

  “No. A nicknam
e was foisted upon me! But I don’t mind. Gabriel is a pretty fancy name, so my friends started calling me Gabe. You can call me Gabe, too. Or Gabriel. Or whatever you want to call me.”

  “I like Gabe. I’ll call you that.” Derek started hanging shirts in the closet. “Hey, my closet has new plastic hangers in it.”

  “I know. I bought them and put them there,” Gabriel said. “The closet did come with hangers, but they were old metal ones. Some of them were rusty. I didn’t want you to get tetanus off of them! I need to protect your health. I’ve decided I’m going to become a doctor.”

  “Cool! That’s even better news than the plastic hangers.” He placed his underwear in the top drawer of his dresser, just like he did in his parent’s house. “Are you going to hire male nurses? They’d better not be cuter than me!”

  “There is no one in the world cuter than you,” Gabriel said. He crossed the room and embraced Derek, kissing him full on the lips. “I love you, you know.”

  “I … I’ve been hoping you love me, but I was afraid to ask. I was worried you might’ve found a boyfriend on campus.”

  “Never,” Gabriel said. “I feel like I’ve loved you forever.”

  “When exactly did you start loving me?”

  “The day we were talking on the Wilson’s porch, and you told me I could get a fantasy job eating candy bars and playing video games! That’s the most adorable thing anyone has ever said to me.”

  “That’s when I started having feelings for you, too,” Derek said. “I was a little backwards. I didn’t know what my feelings were, back then. But I do now.” He stepped away from Gabriel and headed toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” Gabriel said, worried.

  “Nowhere,” Derek said with a smile. “I’m just going to lock the door. There are other people in the house.”

  Chapter 3

  Karen Howard loved southern California because it was always room temperature outdoors. This fact was important to her at night, since she was homeless.

  For years, she had enjoyed a lucrative career as a TV and movie actress – never any lead roles, but still, lots of good supporting roles as secretaries, stewardesses, nosy neighbors, and wise-cracking waitresses. From time to time, she did voice work for cartoons and animated sitcoms. The only crisis that arose during her best years was when she was involved in a car accident and her left knee was injured. But, insurance paid for the surgery, the artificial knee joint, her therapy and recovery time, so she was able to move on with her life.

  A bigger problem arose the following year. Karen started dating a flashy TV producer who’d been hiring her for projects on a regular basis. Before long, she regularly attended late-night parties with him, drinking and snorting lines of coke. She moved on to harder drugs, and didn’t care when her new boyfriend started paying for the good times with her money. Life soon became a 24-7 high and her boyfriend became her pimp, trading use of her body for even more drugs.

  Eventually Karen’s boyfriend disappeared after finding a new sweetheart to exploit. Before long, her money was spent and her work dried up. The extreme drug use had permanently addled her, so there was no longer any possibility of her returning to her acting career.

  Her friends and relatives helped for a few months, lending her money that she had no intention of paying back. They stopped after they realized she was spending the money they gave her on booze and drugs. She sold off her possessions, but it wasn’t enough to pay the rent.

  And so she became homeless.

  She balked at the idea of staying in shelters. Seeing a social worker was also unacceptable in her eyes. Doing those things, she felt, would be admitting she’d become a hopeless case. She still thought she might be able to get back on her feet, if the right opportunity came along.

  She took up residence in an unused dumpster next to a warehouse that had gone out of business. During her time on the streets, she developed a loose friendship with a young couple named Laura and Bob. They were teenagers who’d run away from their homes in rural Oregon, hoping to become stars in L.A. Karen let them sleep in her dumpster, since they were talkative, kind, and asked nothing of her. And who knows – since they wanted to become performers, maybe her friendship with them would eventually put her back on track with her former career.

  When the three closed their dumpster for the night, they usually struck a brick under the lid so it would be open a few inches, for air circulation. One Saturday morning, Laura gently shook Karen awake.

  “What’s going on?” Karen said. “Is it the police?”

  “I don’t know!” Laura whispered. “An old guy is standing outside our dumpster.”

  “He’s wearing a trenchcoat,” Bob added, matter-of-factly.

  Karen looked toward the lid of the dumpster. Through the gap, she saw a man’s eyes, peering into the dumpster.

  Karen pushed the lid open, stood up, and gazed at their visitor. He was a handsome, well-built, sixtyish man with gray hair. He wore a black trenchcoat over a blue suit and gold tie. She instantly noticed he was carrying two pizza boxes. A silver van was parked nearby. “What’s going on?” she said.

  “I noticed you climbing into this dumpster yesterday,” he said. His voice was low and rough, but still, very friendly. “You and your friends must be down on your luck. Your poor dears. Life’s tough sometimes. So, I thought you might enjoy a hearty breakfast. But first, please come out of that dumpster! That’s no place to enjoy a good meal.”

  Once Karen and her friends had climbed out of the dumpster, the man handed them the boxes. The three dumpster residents examined the feast. One pizza was Italian sausage with mozzarella cheese, while the other was a breakfast pizza made with scrambled eggs, crumbled bacon, and cheddar cheese.

  The man in the trenchcoat walked to his van and returned with a carton of orange juice and three plastic cups. “You need your vitamin C,” he said cheerfully.

  The three homeless friends dug into their meal with ravenous gusto, washing down their pizza with orange juice. After a while, they began yawning and nodding off. Before long, they sank to the ground.

  First the man in the trenchcoat carried Laura into the silver van, and then Bob. He then approached Karen. As he began to pick her up, she started to stir. Clearly she hadn’t consumed enough orange juice. The man let her settle on the ground again. Then he hurried into the van and emerged a minute later with a hypodermic needle.

  Barely conscious, Karen looked up at the man in the black trenchcoat. “What’s happening?” she said. “Will I be okay?”

  “Certainly,” he said, giving her an injection. “Your days of being homeless are over.”

  Karen nodded and went to sleep. He shook her, to make sure she was out. Then he threw her over his shoulder and carried her to the van.

  - - -

  When Sinthia Laretta wanted to talk with December about Sinthia’s Cabaret, they met for lunch. But when Dr. Gabe Martin needed to discuss Stitched with December, all he had to do was say, “Meet me in the toy chest.”

  The apartment they shared was huge and opulent, catering to their most playful fantasies. They enjoyed three master bedrooms: one was hung with gold drapes, another was decked out in various shades of green, and the third and most frequently used bedroom was called the toy chest.

  The walls of the toy chest were lined with cabinets that housed hundreds of action figures, as well as toy cars, trucks, spaceships, and other vehicles. The room also held a variety of stuffed animals, as well as movie posters and standups.

  At home, Gabe called his partner Derek, since that was December’s name back when they first met. One day, Gabe asked Derek to meet him in the toy chest to talk about upcoming celebrity guests for Stitched. They sat on the edge of the bed and Gabe threw photos of a dozen possible guests across the mattress.

  The photos had been sent to him by either talent agents or in a few cases, the celebrities themselves. He’d originally started with hundreds of photos, so he’d asked his staff to narrow the s
election down to the very best. “Look at these faces, Derek,” he said. “What’s the first thing you notice?”

  December looked over the selection. “Five of them are drag queens,” he said. “They’ve all had work done on their faces.” He pointed to one of them, an older queen with sculpted features. “That one has had at least two nose jobs, as well as a brow-lift, an eye-lift, and a lower face-lift. It’s funny – she had the brow-lift and eye-lift first, then the lower face-lift a couple years later. She couldn’t afford to do the last surgery any sooner. For a while there, before the lower face-lift, the top of her face was tight and youthful and the bottom third looked like a basset hound.”

  “We have to bear in mind, most of the non-celebrity guests on my show are average people who want to fix some long-term problem with their appearance,” Gabe said. “They wouldn’t identify with any of these drag queens. These girls just like upgrading their looks.”

  “Plus, they’ve either already been on Sinthia’s Cabaret or are forthcoming this season,” December said. “We don’t want to become Cabaret Part 2.”

  “Exactly. Let’s clear them out.” So saying, Gabe picked out the pictures of the queens and set them on the nightstand. “The main reason most people have a long-term problem is because they’re afraid of going under the knife. That’s why I like having you on the show. You’re a human doll. You’ve had plenty of procedures. Having work done doesn’t bother you at all. Many people who are thinking of having plastic surgery would be inspired by you.”

  “So let’s feature more human dolls,” December suggested. “You’ve had them on the show before and they’re always a big hit. They make having plastic surgery seem like no big deal.”

  Gabe considered the photo selection. “We have two human dolls here who’ve been on the show before, on different seasons.” He pointed to a picture of a handsome man with a thinning butch haircut. “We have Vandric Bell. He’s a nice guy and he looks great. Very natural. Not as natural as you, of course!”