I put a spell on you
Chapter 1
The day was starting out badly.
I tripped over both the empty bottles of beer and boxes of wine by my bed... It was a long couple of nights alright? I was having a good lord I can’t believe im admitting this, a crissis of consience.
Yeah I was shocked too.
It’s like Jimmny mother fucking cricket has been whispering in my ear.
After talking to Deana at the Waterloo and realizing that I did have some pretty intense feelings for Gino I further realized what a nightmare I had made for myslef.
Her I am Dr. Frankenstien and all I want to do in life is get it on with my monster and settle down with a couple of vietnamese war orphans. Yeah I’m living in wonderland. That’s the funny thing with all this, even though everyone else is oblivious to all my tampering...I’m not and it never really bothered me before...but the closer I get to Gino and the amourously closer he gets to me, I realize that something has changed.
All this magical transformation has underscored one of my own. The bottom line being this is defenently the end. I’ve got to move out and get on with my life. I mean this was fun but now every time Gino gives me puppy dog moon eyes I feel like a heal. Every time I see Red and Hank I wander if their love is the true incomparable kind they believe it is or is it just the ramifications of a witty spell I cast with Eric’s alarm clock.
Last night was when I had finally had enough heineken to tell Gino I was moving out. He took it lest then well, at first he pouted and then he raved and finally he just left the room in stony silence.
But it’s for the best he’ll see. He has no clue all the shit I’ve done and no one wants to date Freddy kruger man.
I’m like the I dream of Jeanie from hell. You let me into your house and I don’t grant your wishes I make your nightmares reality and then make you love it. I am such an unbelievable bastard.
So I’ve been drinking, like it comes as any surprise, I’m the king of vice man. I’ve been literally trying to drown myself in alcohol and moody black women. I have the Blues so I’ve been listening to the blues. Over and over again, Billy, Nina, Sarah, If she’s black lived during the 40’s and been done wrong, she’s on my multichange CD player...as a matter of fact I must have gotten a real load on after the altercation with Gino because I could vaguely make out the skipping of one of my favorite CD’s as I was about to head to the kitchen. As I liastened to the scratching of the beautiful song I rolled my eyes heaven word and marveled once again at God’s unbelievable sense of humur.
“I put a spell on you...” nina Simone crooned behind me.
“and now your mine.” She skipped
“and now your mine”
“And now your mine.”
I kicked the Cd player
And it skipped again “You Can’t stop the things I do...
“I ain’t lying...”
“I ain’t lying...”
“I ain’t Lying...”
But I was.
And fuck Nina for telling me about it. So I quite maturely punched the CD player until it shut up. It must have been skipping since I fell asleep. That’s’ strange. I waded through layers of messy clothes until I finally found the damn door.
I wandered to the kitchen in my sweat pants only to find that Red had found the milk I hidden in the crisper and devoured both it and an entire box of my cap’n crunch. Not only had he eaten my breakfast he had managed to make one huge ass mess in the process. I purveyed the fridge for anything resembling animal vegetable or mineral. Found a lot of minerals, however little to no Animal nor vegetable..unless you consider the fuzz growing on whatever was living at the back of the freezer...but it seemed to be moving so it could have been on or the other.
Oh, well it’s not like I had anything planned for the day except research. I could easily run across the street grab a bag of cheeto’s and start trying to translate these ridiculously long French astrological calculations back into their original latin. It’s one thing to translate one language into your native tongue but trying to translate your 4th language into a dead language made my head swim. Hey, but that’s why I’m a child genius. I know the generally excepted term is Geek but I do prefer child genius.
I was still debating on weather or not I should scrape the fuzz of the back of the freezer and scrape it on some toast when the phone rang, “College Boy Taxidermy, You snuff ‘em we stuff ‘em.”
“....Damien I wish you wouldn’t answer the phone like that, people from work might be calling me.”
“Gino Why are you calling the house phone? I swear if your calling me from your cell to tell me to bring your god damn coffee to you while your in the shower again...I’m going to bring you the coffee and a plugged in blow driver.” I grumbled. “I’m not your god damn house boy you know.”
He chuckled a little on the other side of the line. “Now there’s a mental picture.”
“Pig,” I snapped as I lit a cigarette.
“I’m not in the house anyway smart ass, Look I had to go out of town this morning my boss cancelled out on this convention and had me go in his place.” He explained.
....House to myself....
red’s at work....
Brian’s probably still tied up over at Forman and mark’s, literally...
I was officially home alone, I paused and put both hands up to my face in mock shock, AHHH! “Okay Gino, when are you coming back?”
“Not for three or four days...” he said and trailed off
“You’ll be there when I get back right, you own’t leave without at least a goodbye...”
He was so sincere so genuine that it almost completey took me aback, “sure gino, I’ll be here for you man” I said with the same sincerety. It’s a tone of voice I don’t really use....I think normal people call it honesty
“Good.” He said happily.
“Is their anything else cause I’m about twenty minutes late for my morning Japanese anime cartoons and if you miss the first half you totally don’t ever catch up.”
He paused and in the silence of that pause I realized I had just set myself up for the inevitable favor that was coming, “There is one thing....I had such little notice that I left a couple of things undone at the gym...”
“What type of things?” I asked cautiously.
“Well I have to do the day edit’s so the staff get’s payed....If someone doesn’t file the paperwork...no one on staff’s gonna eat for a week. And it would be really great if you could...”
“Go into your office do the paperwork and file it for you.” I continued finishing his sentence.
“Yeah!”
“No!”
“Aw, c’mon it’s only a little math, you are good at math right.”
“Yes Gino I’m taking quantum theory and advanced algebraic theorem, I can multiply wage times rate, however I don’t want to be around all those vapid little gym rats that hang out at that glorified bath house you call a gym.”
“Please Damien, you know I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t killer important.” He begged.
Their was just something about this man that when he was pleading like a little boy that drove me nuts...well to be honest everything about this man drove me nuts. It’s gotta be the italian thing...gotta be...“Alright but you gotta swear they’re not going to make me move weights or rearrange machines you know how I feel about physical labor.”
He laughed a big chested hearty laugh. “don’t worry baby, just crunching numbers not Abs.”
“Fine, but you owe me.”
“...Oh I’m sure I’ll find some way to pay you back, ...somehow.” His hot italian baritone dripped with suggestion and sent chills up my spine...what was it with this man?
“Alright Don Juan you got what you wanted now go back to your conference.":
“One more thing D,...”
“I AM NOT DOING YOUR LAUNDRY! Now get off my phone you mook.” I snapped
“No not that, it’s just I ahh....” There was an uncharacteristic anxiousness in his voice, “I...uhm...er.... Left a protein shake in the fridge before I left.”
“Uh-huh” I answered.
“Whatever you do, do not drink it.” He demanded.
“Gino why would I drink that concrete you..”
“JUST don’t drink it!” He Ordered.
“Alright, " I answered taken aback...“Look if I’m going to go DO YOUR WORK, I have to go shower and get dressed. Call me later and I’ll tell you how it went.”
“Thanks again Damien...I really appreciate it. I know I can always count on you. I don’t know what I’m going to do when you...”
I answered him softly and quietly kind of embarrassed, “We talked about this already Gino...I’ve got to go it’s for everyone’s own good.”
Their was silence again and he finished in a hurt tone, “Fine. Call me later.” And then the son of a bitch hung up on me. He hung up like a spoiled brat. Well fuck him then.
I tramped up stairs and hoped in the shower.
I stepped out of the shower and began to dry off. Why would a guy like Gino want me anyway. I mean he had to be at the least 240lbs and 6 and half feet of tone muscled Italian beauty? And what was I? At my 5′11 and a buck 60 I was hardly the kind of guy you’d see such a paragon of gorgeousness chasing after.
I assessed myself in the bathroom mirror as I dryed the wetness out of my dark bangs. I’m mean I’m not saying I should have be ringing a cathedral bell and terrorizing all of paris.
I was cute. But that was it. I’m cute.
Not sexy. Not handsome. Cute.
Do you know what a pain in the ass it is to be cute?
My features are a little angular so it makes my face a little elivated above pretty. I have a pug nose that just exacerbates the cuteness. But when talking about how I look it always goes back to my eyes. In all honesty I know what my best feature is and if we’re going to ignore my simply spectacular ass, it’s my eyes. The first thing a drunken guy at a party says to me when he clumsily hits on me is, “Why do you hide such pretty eyess behind all that hair?” and then they proceed to push my bangs away from my face like it’s the end of “the Fucking Way we were”
I continued to towel of my compact 20 year old body. On a good day I was a little bit of an ambercrombie boy, pretty and solidly biult. On a bad day I was the evil twin of an Abercrombie boy. I was a cute guy, I could afford to be picky and proud, but iw as no where near gino’s level. He was porn star material. I was strictly catalogue work.
I mean I’m not shallow, I’m just practical.
I put on a pair of baggy dark cord’s and one of my shirts with flames on the color, hooked up my wallet chain and slicked my hair down. All black and shiney. I don’t usualy over do the Addams family influence in my wardrobe this much but the Dark Skaterboy look tends to frighten the gym bunnies into leaving me alone.
I popped on the Shades and was ready to go.
However my stomach started grumbling again. I remembered that I still hadn’t eaten. I rushed down stairs again and once more began the fuzz at the back of the fridge debate. That’s when I spied the blender full of grey liquid. Most have been Gino’s protein shake. It didn’t look to appetizing but then again the Fuzz kept shaking back and forth every time I went to examine it, as it were saying, “I’ll cut cha man, I’ll cut cha!”
So you don’t want to share your go damn food with me but you’ll have me be your little errand boy huh Guido? Whatever.
I grabbed the blender and instead of pouring it in a glass as my first reaction suggested, I drank the slop right out of the blender the way I had seen Gino do a million times. To say that it was disgusting would perhps offend all things that were glad to be called disgusting. I’m going to stop doing arbitrarily petty things all together based soley on the fact that that protein shake was the most horrible thing I’ve ever put passed my lips and that includes the night in high school when I was actually talked into bed by a girl. It was fucking foul man. I would have spit it out but by the time I was running out the door I didn’t want to kill the flowers on the lawn.
I jumped in the car and was off to the Gym.
I felt funny from jump. The shake was not sitting well with me at all, the entire way to the gym all I did was shift uncomfortably in my car. It just felt you know...wrong. And when I got there it wasn’t much better. I was cutting my best lightening bolt swath of mysterious presence as I crossed the gym lobby floor when the overtly perky receptionist stopped me.
“Excuse me errr... sir are you a member...”
I tipped my glasses and regarded her with a cool stare. “No,” and continued walking
“Sir...SIR!” she kept saying as I breezed my way passed her desk and into the gym.
I was bearly beyond the glass doors when I could inwardly feel all the little spandex clad cats arching their backs, showing their claws and hissing at me. The contrast between myself and the gym clientele was obvious. As far as the eye could see were various tank tops, shorts, and jogging pants in every conceivable shade of the rainbow from fire engine red to lavender and here I was clothed in shiny black. I must have looked like the wicked witch in munchkin land.
Once I was in the safety of Gino’s office I began to relax. My fists unclenched and I relaxed my jaw. I hate being out of an environment I can control. I absolutely hate it. I know that’s sounds very Martha Stewart Fanatical but it’s just one of my little idiosyncratic ways. The Office was typical Gino. That is it was very cute yet masculine. It had a heavy red theme and seemed more suitable for the interior of some Austin Power’s Scene with it’s mod motif and furniture. He had probably let one of the little gym bunnies who followed him around like he was a God redecorate it for him.
I slumped into his comfy chair, took one look at the payroll files he had on his desk and fell face first onto the glass table top. I quickly reconsidered grabbed my leather bomber jacket and used it as a makehshift pillow. I was happily snoozing the morning away when I was unceremoniously disturbed by pure evil in biker shorts.
“Gino I just had this great idea and had to ....oh my gawd! How’d you get in here?”
I propped my head up just enough to look at him through one squinted eye. “A rather novel idea Eddie, I used the door. The concepts a little difficult and might elude you... You just grab and pull.”
Eddie looked at me from behind a beatific face twisted into a shallow grimace, “I thought people had to say your name three times and spin in a circle or something.”
I lazily propped my head up on my elbows and regarded him with an uninterested smirk, Eddie stood before me in all his exercised-over worked out- glory. He wore a pair of baggy nylon pants and a tank top that was so tight I could actually see the beginning of stubble on his shaved chest through the fabric. He was all in Yellow and brown which set off his glorious tan and dyed hair. He looked like every Circuit magazine I had ever discarded at parties. God could a man’s skin stretch more erotically over the grapefruits of his delts...
“Eddie it’s obvious Gino isn’t here so why don’t you go back to your glorified line dancing for queens, huh?” Now in all honesty there really wasn’t any reason for Eddie and I to have this very open hostility for each other. I mean in all honesty I had made him everything he was today....literally.
But then again Magic can only do so much. It can only accentuate or emphasis qualities already inherent in the subject. It’s like that fundamental law of physics madigc can neither create nor destroy...just augment and change...
So when I cast my little hex on Eddie it might have changed his physicality and his subsequent sexual orientation but the Core of Eddie was still the same old Egocentric prick. Only now he was gorgeous and shallow. So he was basically the most vile of combinations, so terrible that just the thought brought my eyes wide with terror- the perfect mix of Quarterback and head cheerleader.
Not to say that I’m some kind of angel by any means and regardless of our past Eddie and I would fundamentally never get along based only on the personality conflicts...but there was one other thing....
“So like Where is GINO, morticia?”
There it was. Eddie knew about the strange relationship Gino and I had been sharing. By all rights Eddie was right to be Jealous even offended. I mean here he was the single most gorgeous gay man in the tri-county area. And I’m not just saying that, the mother fucker has a sash, And the only man who’s his equal wants nothing to do with him. Who does he want? The odd little skaterboy with a penchant for the occult. If I were eddie I’d be just as angry.
I couldn’t help myself but smirk, “Oh didn’t you hear? He ran off to fire island with that bodybuilding champion who was in town last week,”
The look of horror on Eddie’s face was exquisite. “NO!”
I laughed “alright he didn’t he’s just away on buisness and left me to mind the shop, so if you don’t mind I’ve got a busy day of enforcing Gay stereotypes about gyms, spandex and vanity ahead of me so...” I made the condescending “dismissal motion with my hands.
Have you ever seen really attractive people get furious? It’s strangely compelling. “I should have known you were here. On my way to work all the pets in the neighborhood were running in circles and the bums were talking backwards.” He moved to leave, but turned instead, “Ya know what you are Damien?”
I had that sick feeling of uneasy confrontation. I had only meant to antagonize the little Gym rat but now I think I had got myself right into an all out fight with a Gym Panther and he was about to treat me like one of the slow Unattractive Gazelle’s. “No I don’t Eddie, I pay a therapist 80 bucks a session so she’ll tell me. now I have a lot of...”
“You’re Pathetic.”
“listen here you stodgy little queen don’t think for one second think just cause we both suck dick doesn’t mean I won’t kick the living...”
“Oh really?” He said and flexed one of his well rounded biceps until it erupted in an erotic display of every crevice of his arm, bulging bigger then most men’s thighs. “This isn’t just for show bitch.”
“Whatever,” I was feeling sicker. I usually excel at confrontation but for some reason I was backing down.
“No I think I want to say this, You come in here act like your better then the rest of us with your fucking snotty attitude and condescending glare. You think your better then the rest of us just because you read old books and think deep fucking thoughts. And we’re just all beneath you because all we think about is looking good and getting laid.” He put both hands down in front of me on the desk, hunching down with a glare of disgust. The particular pose made his lats flare and made his already enormous pecs look like they were going to burst through the tank top. I was feeling sicker and more uncomfortable but the fucking weirdest thing of all...I was getting hard.
“Yeah you pegged me Eddie that’s exactly how I think. You should have a radio call in show or something.” I said offhandedly and tried to pretend I was examining the pay roll edits more closely.
“I know your type, and if Gino doesn’t see it I sure as hell do. You’re an envious little bitch. You wish you could look like us. You see big gorgeous guys like me and the boys from the gym shirtless on the dance floor and you wish you could take off your god damn Poke’mon T-shirt and dance with us. Face it Damien you’re a fat girl.”
“What?” I almost spat at him.
“Oh your not fat babe, your just not one of the pretty girls. And because the pretty girl’s won’t let you play their reindeer games you have to pretend your just to good for them with all your intelligence and intellectual strife. But in the end your just another Fat girl wishin she could be prom queen.” He ahd now worked himself around the desk and was right in front of me. I stood and faced him angrier then I’d ever been yet still feeling so strange I couldn’t answer him. “I know what you think when you see my and Gino’s big muscled bodies stretching against the fabric of are shirts, our every movemnet popping huge bulges in our clothes...” He got closer to me, “It’s not the self righteous irritation you pretend...” he pout his hand on my shoulder and the other took a firm pat to the erection in my groin, “it’s a bulge of your own babe.” He licked the side of my face, and turned for the door. His ridiculously large bubble but sashayed away tauntingly. “You’re just too insecure to admit it.”
And then I was alone.
It wasn’t until about five minutes later that I actually got it together to respond....“what a slut...”