Jase laughed so hard he almost sprayed Michael’s face with his drink. When he finally composed himself, he cleared his throat and said, “I don’t know about that.” But he did know.
He’d had a quick glimpse of Luis’s penis the night before. When Luis’s robe had opened by accident, he couldn’t help himself. From what Jase had seen, Luis had a nice, ordinary, average-looking penis; nothing mutant about it.
“But did you or didn’t you?”
“I didn’t.”
Michael frowned and shook his head. Then he scratched the back of his neck and said, “Well, join the club, Jase-doll. No one else in this room has slept with him either.”
As the night pressed on and more guests arrived, Michael left Jase alone and disappeared in the crowd. Jase didn’t spend much time with Luis, because Luis was busy talking with all his guests. He floated between them, entertaining them with witty comments and pithy jokes. But Jase didn’t mind. He sat on a window seat with the dog on his lap, watching people drink too much and compete to be the loudest. From what Jase could see, the annoying little woman with the French Canadian accent and the little bird glued to her hat seemed to be up for first prize in the noisy-obnoxious category. At one point, Jase felt like pushing her right out the window.
The guests that arrived after Jase were not exactly people Jase would have seen at White House dinners, and he’d been to enough White House dinners over the years to know the difference. These so-called friends of Luis’s, though Jase doubted Luis was close to any of them, were more like jaded D-listers (maybe E) who didn’t have anything better to do that night. They were either trying too hard to impress each other with exaggerated stories of their limited achievements, or trying to hook up with someone for the night. The only person Jase vaguely recognized was a politician he’d read about in the newspaper, a tall attractive man with silver temples and a stoic expression. He wasn’t the most important politician in New York State, but he seemed like one of those ambitious types who would go anywhere and smile at anyone for a vote. Other than the politician, the most interesting people at the party were the drag queens.
There were three: one was over six feet tall with six-inch stilettos and huge hands, another was short and chubby with a red Lucille Ball wig and a blue tent dress, and the oldest one resembled Ethel Merman with broad shoulders, large feet, and five o’clock shadow.
By midnight, the small apartment was so jammed with people Jase had trouble crossing through the room to get another drink. One woman cursed him for bumping into her by accident with his drink. By two in the morning, Mr. Gordon, the landlord, started calling to complain about the noise. Jase was the only one who heard the phone ring; he just happened to be passing the loveseat where Luis had shoved the phone under the cushion. Jase tried to tell Luis about Mr.
Gordon so Luis wouldn’t get in trouble. Mr. Gordon had threatened to call the police if the noise continued.
But Luis was busy with his guests and he wasn’t paying attention. He didn’t seem to care that there were three young guys in the corner of his living room kissing each other and groping each others’ private parts. Actually, Luis didn’t stop to focus on anything until the tall drag queen with the six-inch stilettos passed out cold in the middle of the living room floor. Jase had been watching this one closely. There were lines of dark mascara running down her cheeks, her lipstick was smudged, and her wig was so crooked strands of her own salt-and-pepper hair were sticking out above her ears. She’d been drinking vodka straight from the bottle and wobbling around the room talking to herself all night. When she finally finished the last few drops left in the bottle, her head tipped back, her body went forward, and she landed on the floor with a loud thump.
It was so loud the entire room shook and everyone stopped talking to see what had happened. A few minutes after that, Jase heard sirens in the distance. Mr. Gordon hadn’t been joking about calling the police.
Jase was standing next to the politician when the sirens sounded. The politician grabbed Jase’s arm and asked, “Is there another way out of here? I can’t get involved with the police.”
Jase couldn’t get involved with the police either. They would have found out who he was and all of his plans would have been ruined. So he grabbed the politician’s arm and said, “Follow me.”
He pulled the politician into the bedroom and to the bathroom. In the bathroom, he pulled back the shower curtain and found Michael and the short, chubby drag queen in the tub. Michael was standing with his legs spread apart and his zipper down, and the short drag queen was on her knees giving him head. She’d removed her false teeth and placed them neatly on the edge of the tub.
Jase stared at her false teeth and blinked. Then he looked at Michael’s dick and blinked again. Michael had one of those curved dicks. The base of his straight shaft was sticking out of the drag queen’s mouth about an inch or two, but the curved head was pushing the drag queen’s right cheek out. At a glance, it looked as though she had a golf ball in her mouth pressed to her cheek.
Jase cleared his throat and said, “Excuse us.” Then Jase and the politician stepped between them and crawled out the bathroom window onto the fire escape.
When they were outside, the politician thanked Jase fast, then climbed down the fire escape so he could sneak out through the back alley.
As Jase walked by the living room window, he realized he’d left the party just in time.
The police were already inside Luis’s apartment breaking things up. One cop was manhandling the short drag queen who had been blowing Michael, and another was looking down at the bird glued to the redheaded woman’s hat. Luis was talking to a tall cop who had a mean expression.
Luis was smiling and his palms were pressed together as if he were pleading with him. But Jase didn’t wait around to see how it ended. He rubbed his jaw and smiled, then went back to his own apartment and closed the window.
Chapter Five
“Are you decent?” Luis asked, sticking his head through the open window.
Jase looked up from his desk and smiled. “I’m almost decent.” He was wearing a white undershirt and white boxer shorts.
Luis had just knocked on Jase’s bedroom window. He was standing outside on the fire escape, wearing nothing but a short white towel wrapped around the lower part of his waist. It was Friday again. He hadn’t seen or heard from Jase all week, not since the night the police had raided his cocktail party.