Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 22:15:57 -0400
From: kevin9y9@yahoo.com
Subject: gay/celebrity/boy-bands/another-night-at-the-club-1

Disclaimer:  Don't read this, you're too young to have such prurient 
interests.  What would your mamma think?  Why are you still reading?  Well, 
okay, then... just don't get caught, and don't blame me.  I don't know any of 
the people in this story.  A few of them are based very loosely on real, 
semi-famous (to a particular demographic) people, but they are not, in fact, 
them.  Even if the names and physical descriptions and favorite flavor of ice 
cream seem similar.  If you are N'sync or represent them, before filing a 
slander or libel lawsuit against me, just ask and I'll have this deleted, I 
swear.  Besides, I'd be way flattered to be the object of the fantasies of 
thousands of people.  This is my first story.  I'm not a huge boybands fan, 
but I read most of the archive just because these stories tend to be updated 
more often (uh, yeah, that's why...)  I _don't_ know N'sync's tour schedule 
or whether they wear boxers or briefs or any of that obsessive fan stuff, nor 
do I care to.  So if little details don't mesh with reality, bear in mind 
that the big ones (the whole "gay" thing) don't either.


Another Night at the Club - Chapter One
"You Don't Even Know Me"


     This story begins in a hospital.

     They all get there at some point anyway, so I figured I would get it out 
of the way real quick, and move on to bigger and better things.

     I wasn't sick... I do tend to get into the angst-y thing if I'm not 
careful about it, but I like to build up into my angst.  Don't spend it all 
at once, you know?  So you aren't going to be getting graphic details of 
knife wounds received in saving the life of my favorite boyband member or 
anything silly like that.  I don't even like boybands.  I'm 23 years old, not 
16, and the boybands didn't hit it big until I had almost graduated college.  
And as everyone knows, people in college only listen to alternative music.  
Or Bob Marley.

     I wasn't sick, but I was in the hospital.  The cafeteria, to be precise.  
I'm a graduate student, and my department is in the medical school, just a 
few buildings down from the hospital.  I often have lunch there when I've 
been too lazy or too busy to go grocery shopping.  Today was a Friday, and I 
had used up the last of my lunchmeat the day before, so here I was.

     It was around 12:30, the peak lunch hour.  I weaved my way between the 
old ladies in their walkers and the fat women who waddled about like they had 
never been in a cafeteria serving line before.  It wasn't that difficult... 
four lanes to choose from.  You want a sandwich?  Go to lane 1.  Salad bar?  
Lane 4.  Hot food?  Pick lane 2 or 3, depending on what you want.  Not so 
many options that you have to stop in the middle of the corridor, and keep me 
from my food.  Besides, I've got an experiment running, and have to be back 
in lab in 45 minutes at most.

     So I make myself a chef's salad, grab a slice of pizza from the hot-
foods line, and get my diet Pepsi.  I've been here in the Midwest for a year, 
but I still refuse to call it pop.  After an eternity waiting for some old 
geezer to pay for his meal entirely in change, I'm through the check out.  
And, big surprise, there is nowhere to sit.

     Ever notice how when you are in a cafeteria, or an airport, or even a 
men's room... that people never sit next to people unless there is absolutely 
no other option?  The cafeteria has tables for four and tables for eight.  
All of them are taken, and most are way under capacity.  I'm used to this, 
though, and grab a seat at the far end of a table for eight.  At the other 
end of the table are four guys in their twenties, I'd guess.  Obviously not 
employees, and they don't have the "something obviously wrong" look about 
them of patients, so they're probably the family or friends of a patient.  I 
barely pay them any mind, missing the annoyed glance the curly-haired one 
gives me as I sit.  I try not to people watch in the hospital cafeteria; I've 
been known to lose my appetite looking at some of the slice of humanity that 
hobbles in there.

     I eat my meal in silence, fishing out a photocopied paper from Cell that 
I should have read weeks ago, and skim through the figures.  The cafeteria is 
noisy as well as crowded, and I'm having trouble concentrating.  The paper is 
as boring as dirt, anyway.  I idly listen to snippets of the conversation 
around me.  I gather that the guys at the other end of the table are here for 
a friend, who is having an emergency appendectomy.  They speculate as to how 
much time off of work this is going to give them, and worry that their friend 
will be okay.  His appendix burst, one of them says.  Nasty business, that.  
I mentally shoot heavenward a prayer of thanks that all my internal organs 
are intact.

     A few minutes later, and I'm done my meal.  I get up from the table, 
gathering my tray and my bookbag.  As I push in my chair, I glance at the 
guys again, and suddenly find myself wishing that I had made an exception to 
my people-watching rule, for once.  They are damn fine specimens of 
masculinity.  One is blonde, with spiky hair -- not necessarily enough to 
ping the gaydar, nowadays, but three or four years ago it would've been -- 
and the most amazing green eyes.  Another is tall, with dark hair and blue 
eyes, and a handsome face.  The third is older and bigger, just a little 
portly, with black hair and a goatee -- a bear, which I normally wouldn't go 
for, but for him I'd almost make an exception.  The final member of the group 
is the youngest, with blonde, curly hair.  He scowls at me, challengingly, as 
he notices me staring at them.  The four almost seem familiar, but I can't 
place it.  In any case, I realize that I've been standing there for more than 
just a few seconds, and turn bright red as I hurriedly turn away and head 
back to work.

--------

     The rest of the day is a blur.  I have twenty things to do at once, and 
know that I will get to only a few of them before the end of the day.  I've 
been in graduate school for a year now, and have finally mastered time 
management enough to be capable of running three experiments at once -- 
sometimes -- but at the same time, my advisor is now expecting more results 
out of me.  The grace period is over; time to produce.  On the bright side, 
I'll probably have a paper in press sometime in the next two months or less.

     It's a Friday, which means -- that's right -- happy hour.  Five o'clock 
comes, and I'm tying up a few loose ends before the weekend.  On a weeknight, 
I'd be willing to stay until 7 or 8 at night if necessary, but this is 
Friday, the one night of the week that I reserve for myself.

     I drop in at happy hour, briefly, getting myself a Bass Ale from the ice 
buckets.  We aren't supposed to have alcohol on campus, technically speaking, 
but the secretaries have gone home for the weekend, and the faculty sometimes 
even drops by to join us.  It's the usual crowd -- our department isn't all 
that big, even with five plus years of students, and we all know each other.  
As per usual, some of the third and fourth year girls are gossiping about 
their principle investigators' love lives, departmental affairs, who had sex 
with whom in the darkroom.  It's disgusting.  Half the reason that I come to 
happy hour is because I know that they won't talk crap about me if I'm 
actually in front of them.  I shudder to think what they say when I've left 
the room.  But, being the only gay guy in the department, I'm not dating one 
of the other students and I keep the details of my love life (paltry though 
they are) to myself.  In the beginning, I spent a lot of time with the other 
first year students, but now that I've been in town for a while I've made 
other gay friends, and have drifted a little apart from the rest of my 
department.  It's a little depressing, actually.

     Finishing my beer, I leave.  One of the other grad students from my lab 
leaves with me, and we commiserate about the terrible gossip.  Our lab is at 
the far end of the hall, and our professor keeps mostly free from the obvious 
departmental politics.  I'm glad of that, not for the first time.

     At home, I check my email for the twentieth time that day.  Nothing new.  
I'm feeling very lazy, and tired.  I check my watch; it's only seven.  I 
decide o head downtown and grab a bite to eat somewhere.  Maybe get a mocha 
at  Starbucks to keep me awake for later in the evening.  It's Friday night, 
which is my club night, when I can relax and be myself among a bunch of other 
gay people my age.

     So an hour later, I found myself sitting in a comfy padded armchair in 
the downtown Starbucks with my Venti iced nonfat mocha, worth every penny 
even on a grad student's stipend, and with my nose in a paperbound copy of 
"The Eye of the World."  Every few minutes, I pause for a sip of my mocha and 
a quick glance at the other patrons.  Starbucks isn't really the gay hangout, 
but there's some not-so-bad looking customers, some of whom ping on the 'dar.  
That's when I see them again, the guys from the hospital.

     The four of them are sitting on one of the large couches just to my 
right, on the other side of the big faux-fireplace that sits in the middle of 
the lounge.  The blonde with spiky hair is closest to me.  God is he hot.  
He's wearing a loose fitting T-shirt, but from his forearms and calves I can 
tell that he's in pretty decent shape.  He's got smooth, white skin, 
absolutely flawless, with the cutest little nose.  And the eyes...

     Oh shit.

     I'm staring into his eyes, which means he's looking at me, which means 
he caught me staring at him.

     But on the bright side, he didn't break the gaze off either.

     I look away, glancing briefly at the other three.  The one with the 
black goatee is chatting with the tall blue eyed guy, and neither of them 
have noticed me watching them.  At the far end of the couch, though, is the 
curly one.  He's noticed, and doesn't look happy about it.  He scowls, and I 
get the distinct impression that the only reason he doesn't say something is 
that he is at the farthest end of the couch from me.  I put my head back down 
into my book quickly.

     And, okay, I admit it... I keep glancing up every few seconds to look at 
the blonde one.

     Finally my brain kicks in.  This is absolutely ridiculous.  I've been 
out for almost three years now, and in that time I've learned that you 
_don't_ try to pick someone up unless you are pretty damn sure that they are 
also gay.  Coming out was a huge relief for me; I no longer had those 
schoolboy crushes on high school or college friends who were straight.  I 
instead developed crushes on people I met at gay coming out groups or, 
eventually, clubs and bars.  At least those had a slight chance of being 
productive.  You don't pick up a guy in a coffee shop.  I resolve to 
concentrate on my book and ignore the guy, however cute he is.

     Well, you don't pick up in a coffee shop unless you play the eye-contact 
game hard and heavy and are damn sure that the other guy is interested.  And 
I'm so busy sitting there trying not to be obvious about checking him out, 
and trying not to be turned to dust by the fiery gaze of the curly haired 
one, that I never notice the blonde casting his looks my way either.

     My life would have continued in its normal orbits, if only a shadow 
hadn't fallen across the pages of my book, and a man's voice interrupted my 
thoughts.  "Er, excuse me?  I was wondering if you could help me and my 
friends out..."

----------

Well, that was part one, which turned out better than I was expecting it to.  
IMHO.  If your opinion differs, direct feedback to: kevin9y9@yahoo.com   Tune 
in whenever I get around to writing more to learn who it is that is 
addressing our hero, and how in god's name I can semi-believably make my 
character hook up with the fab (pun intended) five.