Kensington is hosting a Tour Wide Giveaway for three iBook copies of WONDERLAND
Wonderland
By: Rob Browatzke
Releasing February 3rd, 2015
Lyrical Press/Kensington
Boy Meets
Boy. Boy Loses Boy.
Boy Goes
to Wonderland…
After six
months of hot-and-heavy dating, Alex is ready to say goodbye to the sex-drugs-and-dance-till-dawn
lifestyle and settle down with the love of his life, Steven. He even bought an
engagement ring. But when Steven finds an illicit party favor in Alex’s pocket,
the powder hits the fan. Steven breaks it off, and Alex heads out to drown his
sorrows—in Wonderland…
The
hottest, hippest nightclub in town, Wonderland is where every boy’s dreams come
true. Where the DJ, Hatter, spins the maddest tracks, the Caterpillar sells the
trippiest drugs, and the Queen of Hearts sends every drag diva off with her
head. Still, Alex can’t stop thinking about Steven—even while being seduced by
a pair of twinks who are tweedlehot and tweedlehotter. Things only get weirder
when Alex learns that Steven is missing—and an anonymous phone call warns him that
he’ll never see Steven again…unless he eats this, drinks that, and dives deeper
down the rabbit hole of decadence. This certainly isn’t just another weekend—in
Wonderland…
Chapter One
I looked around
the club and couldn’t believe no one seemed to care. The party was still going
on! In the booth, the Hatter was on the decks, spinning away, without a worry
in the world, and below him, on the dance floor, it was a sea of bodies,
shirtless, glittered, glistening. Strobes flashed and lasers wove among the
crowd, and heads were thrown back, hands in the air, in ecstasy. On Ecstasy,
maybe. Who knew? Sure enough, the Caterpillar was at his table, and people
visited him briefly, their money for his drugs, and then they were off to the
bathroom, to snort, to drop, to bump whatever he’d sold them.
The air
vibrated. It was the bass pounding off the dance floor, it was a hundred
conversations being yelled out over the din. Here, the twins, in their matching
tanks, eyes closed, muscles bulging, as they gyrated together in a cage. There,
a flock of mindless twinks, fluttering about in the drama of the moment. Didn’t
they know? Didn’t they care?
I sipped my gin
and cran, and shook my head. I wanted to scream! Wanted to grab some passing
boy and shake him till he understood. Maybe he’d only
mattered to me. Maybe I was the only one who really
loved him. Maybe to everyone else, he’d just been a face in the crowd, just one
nameless pretty boy among all the other nameless pretty boys.
From the first
moment I laid eyes on him though, getting into his white VW Rabbit, he had been
so much more to me than just some nameless pretty boy. Sure, right then, he’d
just been nameless and pretty, but for the brief second his gaze met mine
across the parking lot, we connected. In those few seconds, I imagined a
hundred scenarios, and in all of them, we ended up with a white-picket -fence,
happy-ever-after in Suburbia, away from this sea of smooth bodies, fast beats,
and hard drugs.
Away from
Wonderland.
But no, now he
was gone, and the party was still going, and I was still sitting here, on my
perch at the bar, where I sat night in and night out, watching the freak-show
train -wreck I
called my life. And no one in this club could give a shit. Give a bump maybe,
or get shittered, but actually care? Actually reach out and genuinely connect
with another human being?
Unlikely.
The Hatter spun,
and the Caterpillar sold, and the people danced, and I sat there, staring at my
ice cubes, thinking it was time to go home, knowing I would order one more. It
was a Friday night, and that’s what I did. What we all did. We left our real
world, our nine-to-fives,
our condos in the sky, and we came down here, under the traffic, to a dirty
little hole that lit up with beautiful lights, and even more beautiful people.
“Another?”
It was Brandon,
beautiful and blond, all abs to the front, all amazing ass to the rear, and he
was leaning across the bar. His eyes were blue, and my drink was empty.
“Sure.” His
fingers brushed the back of my hand as he took away my empty, replaced it with
another.
“On me,” he
said, and he was back to the line-up. I
watched him for a while, doing the graceful dance of the bartender. He spun
about, pouring shots, cracking beer, dispensing drinks and flirts and seven- dollar
ounces of happiness.
I twirled the
drink around in my hands. I really had had enough, and I knew I should go, but
I hoped he’d come. Still. Even though the Hatter had already announced last
call for the first time. Even though the last thing Steven had said to me was
that he never wanted to see me again. He couldn’t have meant it though. It was
the heat of the moment and when he calmed down, when we’d both calmed down,
we’d work it out. He’d come down those stairs, and through the crowd, and he’d
take me by the hand and lead me to the dance floor, and with our bodies pressed
together, we would kiss under the strobe, like we did that first night, and
everything would be the way it was.
“You have five
minutes left until last call,” the Hatter counted down on the mic, and Kesha
mixed with One Direction, and the twinks squealed and the dance floor, already
full, bulged with more people, one big writhing mass of beautiful, tragic
homos. And not one of them knew or cared that he was gone, and it was over, and
my drink was empty again.
“Brandon!” I
yelled as he spun past me, dropping drinks down at the other end of the bar.
“Another?”
“Make it two,” I
said, and slid a twenty towards him.
He dropped off the drinks and my change, and I took the drinks, left the
change. It was just money. And his ass was easily worth the tip.
I pushed back my
stool, lurched to my feet, drink in each hand, and fought my way through the
crowd. Eyes went up and down me, in that judging homo way. My eyes went up and
down the people I passed, just as judging. I wove my way through fat straight
girls and their skinny gay best friends, past the plaid-wearing lesbians
playing pool in the corner, my eyes on the Caterpillar. I knew I shouldn’t. I
knew Steven wouldn’t like it.
But he hadn’t
come. And if all these people didn’t care, why should I?
“Alex!” I heard
my name as an arm wrapped around my waist. An arm attached to the gleaming
torso of one of the twins. He pulled me into him, and I lifted my drinks over
his shoulders as we hugged, as we kissed each other’s cheeks. “How’s your
night?”
“It’s a night,”
I said, sipping my drink, my eyes darting
past whichever twin this was to the table in the corner, where the Caterpillar
watched and waited. “Yours?”
“Where’s
Steven?”
There it was.
His name. Hearing it made my chest tighten. “He didn’t come out tonight.”
“Too bad! Come
dance with us!” He went to take me by the hand as his look-alike
came up and grabbed me by the other. I felt my drink spill down my arm.
“No, I was just
headed home. I—"
“One dance?” Two
matching smiles, four matching dimples, four sparkling green eyes, so much
muscle. How could I say no? And with Steven not here, why should I say no?
And then we were
on the dance floor, hands in the air, and I had one in front of me, grinding
back into my crotch, and one behind me, grinding into my butt, and all around
me, people danced and laughed and drank, and the lights were bright, and the
music was wordless and fast, and faster and faster we danced, and I finished my
drinks and threw back my head, and let myself get lost in the moment.
Steven hadn’t
come. I had waited and waited and waited, and he hadn’t come. He had made his
choice. The twin behind me was kissing my neck. I tilted my head back and met
his lips with mine. He tasted like berries.
I twisted around
so we were facing each other. Behind me, the other one lifted up my shirt, and
I let him take it off. His lips were on my shoulders, and I paused briefly,
thinking how I must look between their tanned and toned bodies. But then the
one behind me slid a hand into my pants and I stopped thinking. And we danced
and we kissed, sweat and skin and sweet sweet sin.
In the mirror
that ran along the dance -floor,
I saw us, and what a sight we were, the three of us, three among the many, and
it was wonderful and it was beautiful and it was wrong. It wasn’t Steven. And
there, at the end of the mirror, I could see the Caterpillar’s reflection, as
he sat there, beer in hand, and watched and waited.
Waited for me?
I squirmed out
from between the twins, and their hands followed mine until the crowd separated
us, and I looked back at them. Their hands had found each other, and they were
kissing, and people watched as they danced, because the twins were beautiful
and shirtless and gleaming, looking enough like actual brothers to be
forbidden, taboo, exciting. I wound my way across the floor and up the stairs,
and sat down across from the Caterpillar.
He smiled at me,
raised his beer in salute. I raised an eyebrow in question, and I could feel
the desperation on my face. It was late. What if he was out? He nodded, and I
could feel the relief and the guilt and the excitement all mingle inside me. I
slid my hand across the table, money hidden in my palm. He shook my hand, and I
could feel the money disappear, feel the familiar little plastic Baggie.
Away from the
Caterpillar I went, and back through the throng, now even more frenzied as the
Hatter announced, “Last song of the night.” People were flooding onto the dance
floor, and I was going against the stream, headed to the bathroom, where the
strobes and lasers and swirling color went away, in an ugly fluorescent glare.
I locked the stall behind me, ignoring the water all over the floor, the
clumped toilet paper, the unflushed bowl.
I held up the Baggie,
flicked it to loosen it, opened it up. I dipped in my key, scooped out some
powder, and inhaled. My body tensed and then loosened. I was floating on fire.
Tucking the Baggie
into my jeans, I checked my reflection in the mirror, looking for
any telltale signs of drug use. Finding none, and not really caring either way,
I went back out in the club, where everything seemed more real now. The music
was just a little clearer, the lights were just a tad brighter. The twins were
still lip-locked on the dance -floor.
I fought my way towards them, and reached them just as the
song faded away into the silence of a hundred conversations, laughter and
shrieks and disjointed words.
I was high and
alive, and I had a twin on each side, and as the three of us found our way out
of Wonderland and into the world above, I looked around the club one last time,
and right then, I didn’t care either.
Rob
Browatzke has been writing for as long as he can remember, and is pretty darn
excited for someone else to be reading his stuff finally! When it comes to gay
bars and booze and drugs and drama, he knows what he's talking about. He has
over fifteen years of experience working in gay clubs in Edmonton, Alberta, and
his current Wonderlounge is every bit as amazing as Alex's Wonderland. Feel
free to stalk him on Facebook and Twitter (@robbrowatzke).
Thank you for hosting today!!
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