A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to My Sexual Orientation (12 page)

I turned the light off, put the pillow over my head and tried desperately to go to sleep without committing a homicide or act of vandalism to my aunt and uncle's property.

The bright California sun beat unmercifully down upon my bronzed skin, but it didn't burn me. It couldn't even touch me through the suntan lotion five young blond women in string bikinis were gently massaging into my legs, arms, back and neck. Their own skin was tanned to the peak of perfection, which only matched the beauty of their faces and figures. They were perfect, the most perfect women I'd ever laid eyes on.

All five women giggled in some shared moment of happiness at being with and pleasing me. I knew what they were hoping for, and I knew they didn't think they would all get it, but they would. I would let each and every one of them have a piece of me right there on the beach with the sound of the ocean crashing upon the shore as our music and our moans the lyrics of our passion.

These were California women, the liveliest, prettiest and horniest of all women in the world ... except French women, but they didn't shave under their arms, so they didn't count.

One of them rolled me over on my beach towel and started rubbing lotion into my chest, which was miraculously far more muscular than I had ever seen it before. This was a me I could get used to. I was now a hardbody!

Well, that was the term I'd heard used for some-one built like I appeared to be, though only one area of my body was actually hard. Hell, I was feeling a little emotionally erect...

I felt a sudden pleasant tugging on my swim-ming trunks as someone tried to slip them off my body and get to the rich, fertile area under them. Oh, and how I wanted to fertilize! I was ready to plant seeds all along the coast as far as the women would have me. I would be a virgin no more.

They had to be really careful with the suit, however. That certain area ready to fertilize wasn't exactly the most flexible at the moment, especially in the state of anticipation I was in.

Slowly, savoring the moment, I sat up to see which one of the women had finally grown bold enough to view my—

Jordan!
I grabbed my trunks and yanked them back up as far as they would go, almost giving myself a wedgie, but the women in bikinis I had wanted so lustily to deflower me held my arms down and then went for the legs. I couldn't move!

I looked back at Jordan in complete horror. He ever so gently began moving his hands up my legs, massaging them as he went. I tried frantically to get one of the girls to help me. They were mouthing words, but their voices didn't sound natural and what they said made no sense considering what was going on.

"I have an idea, Chester,” one of them said. “Why don't we just be spontaneous and have Cheerios instead of corn flakes this morning?"

She spoke in my Aunt Virginia's voice.

"Well...” Another looked at me and sounded exactly like Uncle Chester. “...I don't think we should go so far out two days in a row, but why not?"

What did this very strange conversation have to do with what was going on?

I felt another tug on my swimsuit. Jordan was licking his lips and appeared more determined than ever to get the damn thing off me. I struggled to get a grip on the suit, but I couldn't move my hands because they were still being held down by the beach babes. No matter how hard I fought, they wouldn't let go, and Jordan was getting too damn close for comfort.

He finally had a solid grip on my trunks and gave them one hard yank as I tried to push my oppressors off me...

Thud!

I opened my eyes and felt a dull ache along the entire right side of my body. The couch—I was no longer on the couch. Correction, I had launched myself
off
the couch. The struggle in my dream had also been acted out to some degree in real life. Actually, maybe this wasn't such a bad place to lie down for a while, especially since I had absolutely no desire to get up and I was too tired to care how comfortable I was.

Coming to California might have been my vacation, but it also symbolically meant giving up a great many things that made me comfortable in life—a bedroom, a bed, people who had a grasp of reality and, to some degree, heterosexuals. And what was with that dream? I had to be feeling stressed out for my subconscious to play games with me like that. Stressed out about what, though? My sexuality? That certainly wasn't worth stressing about. Hell, it was more like comic relief.

"Oh, good.” Uncle Chester's voice interrupted the noise of the still-functioning grandfather clock. It was funny how I hadn't noticed it in a while. Now, if I could only drown
him
out. “Glad to see you rolled out of bed, Aaron. Heck of a landing, though. Just don't ever try out for the Olympics, unless it's the Special Olympics."

Well, wasn't he just witty?

"Virginia, why don't you get another cereal bowl down, and the young man can join us for breakfast before doing the dishes."

At least I understood why I'd heard their voices in my dream; it wouldn't take years of expensive therapy to figure that one out. Everything else might, but not that.

I sighed and began to untangle myself from the sheets. What time was it, anyway? I couldn't recall the last time I'd heard the clock go off, but it didn't seem like that much time had passed since I'd put my head down to sleep. A glance up at the damn thing informed me it was five minutes to seven.

This had to be some kind of sick joke! Nobody got up this early, nobody except ... well, old people. It followed that only old people would think that having Cheerios instead of corn flakes for breakfast qualified as spontaneity. Maybe, if they were going to go all out, they'd try a bit of sugar or some fruit—after all, one is what one eats—with their flakes or Os, but I'd be willing to bet that didn't happen too often in this household.

I stumbled into the bathroom to brush my teeth while Aunt Virginia took two more bowls out of a cabinet and Uncle Chester knocked on Grandma's door. At least I wouldn't have to be miserable alone, though I'm sure Grandma had had a much better night's sleep than I did.

I sat down at the table and poured myself some cereal and milk. Grandma still hadn't appeared, so Uncle Chester went and pounded on her door again.

"Come on, Hotdog! The day is wasting!” he shouted. “Virginia and I have been up for forty-five minutes already. I've shaved, and we both showered, and breakfast is getting old. If you aren't out soon, it'll be time for lunch."

Oh, I was really enjoying this. I tended to be, for lack of a better word, a real bitch in the morning when I got up. I didn't care if it was for work or school or even if I slept in; I didn't want to see another living human being, let alone talk to one, for at least a solid half-hour. And happy? I didn't want see a happy person, either. That made everything so much worse for them in the end when I got a hold of them. Guaranteed, they weren't going to be happy when I finished with them.

My mother was the same way, so I can say I got it from her. However, she had to get it from someone, too, and that someone just happened to be my grandmother.

Speaking of whom, we could all hear the beast stirring and making her way over suitcases to the door she had so unceremoniously shut me out with last night. Uncle Chester looked over at me and grinned from ear to ear. He had no idea what was about to happen.

"Jesus Christ, Chester!” The door flew open, and there stood Grandma, makeup in worse shape than she'd gone to bed with, eyes dark and still almost completely shut, nostrils flaring and hair looking as though she'd stuck her finger in a light socket before coming out. Now I understood why she made sure to put her face on before joining the rest of humanity in the morning.

Uncle Chester gasped, and Aunt Virginia dropped her spoon.

"It's going on seven in the morning.” Grandma dipped her words in anger and shot them out of her mouth like darts from a blowgun we used to imagine the naked women using in
National Geographic
. “Am I at work? No. Am I late for an appointment? No. Am I slightly hung over and in need of some rest? Yes!"

"Uh...” It was all Uncle Chester could say. I think he was still overwhelmed at the sight of his sister this early in the morning. Aunt Virginia was certainly horrified.

I, on the other hand, was only a little shocked and a great deal amused. The only thing going through my mind was “Go, Grandma!"

Uncle Chester must have seen the half-cockeyed grin on my face and decided to try and turn the tables.

"Well, I'm sorry there, Hotdog.” He spoke soothingly and apologetically. I was immediately suspicious of his sudden change of attitude. “If you want to blame someone, you should be looking at that young man over there.” He pointed at me, and I froze. “He's the one who said it was rude of you to miss breakfast, and for me to shout because you were a little hard of hearing."

"You've gotta be kidding me,” I mumbled.

A few years ago, as the entire family sat down to eat Thanksgiving dinner, Grandma got everybody's attention and announced that we were going to say grace. As she started to do so, I shouted out the word “Grace” and made for the drumstick.

Nobody was really amused except for my father and me. My mother accused me later of trying to make too light of things in life, that not everybody was going to laugh and that not everything had to be funny. I never understood why that had to be true, when Murphy's Law had been screwing with my life for years.

Now it was Uncle Chester's Law, and I was the one who wasn't amused. I think I was starting to understand how frustrated Mable felt when I pulled all those pranks on her.

Grandma's head whipped around, an impressive close second to Linda Blair's complete head spin in
The Exorcist
, and glared at me. It looked as though she wanted to rip my head completely off my body with her bare hands but couldn't quite decide if that would hurt enough to get across her dis-pleasure at being woken up so early. Instead, she stomped back into the bedroom and slammed the door shut behind her. I just thanked God she didn't have a loaded gun in her suitcase. The only thing generally ever loaded around Grandma was Grandma, unless there were relatives visiting or she was visiting them.

"Well.” He shrugged. “I think she's a little upset. You best go use our shower, and then we'll get out of here before she comes back out. We have some shopping to do before company arrives."

I wondered what company he was talking about. It was probably more old people.

"Virginia will calm her down, and you can do the dishes after we get back."

Oh, well, that made my leaving with him to do some shopping okay, since I could do the dishes after we got back. I mean, that's what I was waiting to hear. Well, I was waiting to hear that and maybe an apology to Grandma followed by a confession about my innocence. That really would have been nice, but I doubted it would ever happen in this family and in this lifetime.

In fact, I would have been willing to bet money I didn't have that he had already convinced himself I really
had
told him those things. I'm sure his mind worked that way because I'd seen it in many of my relatives—namely, my aunts back home.

At this point, I needed a sign from God that the rest of this trip would get better. I had to stop saying that things couldn't get any worse because every time I did, inevitably, that's exactly what happened. Yes, a sign would be nice.

"Well, don't just stand there,” Uncle Chester scolded. “You have running water in Michigan, don't you? I don't have to explain how a shower works, do I?"

Did he really want an answer?

"Skediddle!"

"Skedaddle,” I corrected without even thinking about it.

"Don't start with me this morning, Arthur."

Aunt Virginia reemerged from the bedroom, and I took a change of clothes in with me along with my beach towel since neither of them had furnished me with a bath towel. I assumed that the guest towels were in the guest bathroom in the guest bedroom, which was now inhabited by a very pissed-off guest.

I stripped off my clothes once I was safely locked in the bathroom and laid them in a neat pile next to my clean ones. There was a Jacuzzi in the bathroom along with a shower stall. I ignored the tub and went for the stall. A shower was going to feel so good! Hell, I was willing to take a nice hot shower as the sign I was looking for.

I walked into the stall and turned the water on, adjusting it as I felt the temperature on my skin. Oh, it was heaven. The sweaty film and smell from the airplane washed off my body and down the drain, as did the smell of my sweat from the car ride to the party, the party itself and the conversation with and kiss from Jordan. All gone ... Bye-bye...

Now, if only I could get rid of the memory of Jordan as easily as I did all of that.

I reached down for the soap and thought for a moment that I had gotten some water in my eye because it appeared that something had moved. However, the eye didn't feel irritated the way it generally did when water got into it. Then what the heck had I seen? Maybe I had just imagined a small black skittery object. Whatever...

I started lathering my arms and chest then moved down to my legs ... which is when I saw the mutant spider. This thing had to be the amalgam of every spider I had ever killed in my entire life, and four times as large! It looked like it belonged inside one of those glass cases in a pet store instead of in a shower stall with me.

Maybe the shower wasn't the sign. Maybe the spider was. Well, if it died on the spot at the sight of me then that would be a good omen. If it didn't, and it moved, we'd have some severe problems.

"Shit ... shit ... shit...” I spoke softly so it wouldn't think I was shouting at it. “I can keep calm ... not a problem. Just keep your calm, Marie and Donald's son...” I needed a plan to either escape or do the only sensible thing someone with arachnophobia could do:
kill it!

My aim sucked, so flinging the bar of soap at it was no good. With my luck, the bar would just slip and slide around and eventually knock the damn spider right towards me. The little bottle of shampoo and conditioner I had with me would barely crush a fly, and I didn't want to get that close without knowing it would go crunch. I needed something else.