Sample Disc

Something smells sweet.

Too sweet.

Over-sweet.

The back of my throat is burning.

Drenched in saliva, and mucus, and other disgusting bodily excrements (only that of the oral/nasal cavity, of course.)

I’m fighting back my gag reflex.

“This hotel is great.” Brendon smiles from the balcony. The limo’s engine is humming in the street, and I’m wondering why it’s still out there, really. We’ve been inside for at least twenty minutes. Maybe we were supposed to dismiss him.

“I guess.” I grumble, leaning back onto one of the two queen sized beds that are placed with equal distance from the walls.

“Don’t be a party pooper. It’s fucking great, and my parents are saints for paying for it.”

“I paid for the limo.” I protest weakly, like it matters.

“Fuck you, I would have been fine with taking your car.”

I roll my eyes and try to shrug off my jacket without sitting up too far, “Glad to know how appreciative you are of me spending the last three weeks paycheck on a limo for your stupid prom.”

He gasps, like I’ve just said something atrocious; Ryan, you blasphemer.

“Prom is not stupid, Ryan Ross. Prom is a right of passage, and without my ‘stupid prom’ I would grown old and incomplete, and I would die with a tuxedo-shaped hole in my heart.” He stares at me with the most impossibly serious face, “Do you want that, Ryan? Do you want me to die incomplete?”

I let him droll on about the importance of prom while my mind wanders off into the other regions of the room. The yellow hue from the lamp and its ugly shade, the blue from the too-big plasma screen with the hotel staff waving with false-smiles at the camera, the heavy breathing sound that’s coming in through the vents, the curtains rustling every time Brendon moves his body to demonstrate the rather unreasonable consequences of not attending one’s prom.

“Fine, whatever.” I finally sigh, “Prom is important. You win.”

“Thank you.” He smiles triumphantly. I nod, spreading my arms, beckoning him over. “What do you want?” He groans, dragging his feet across the too-plush carpet. He pauses, biting the inside of his mouth in concentration. “No, never mind. I don’t want to know.”

“Hey. Shut up. You love me.”

“Lies. All lies. Filthy, unreasonable, misleading lies.”

“Mhmm.”

“No, really. You’re a liar.”

“Of course I am.”

It’s a simple banter, back and forth, and I’ve missed nights like this.

Nights in rooms with heating and air conditioning, and more than a mattress on the floor, and Brendon being Brendon, and me being everything but what I usually am.

There’s work Ryan, and school Ryan, and adult Ryan, and pickupBrendonfromschool Ryan, and be polite, Ryan, and ‘these are myparents, Ryan, and get up, get dressed, Ryan, and you have a paper due tomorrow, Ryan, and do the dishes, Ryan, and go do laundry, Ryan, and buy some more shampoo, Ryan, and there’s never anytime for Ryan.

But tonight I’m too far gone to care about whatever I’ve left at home in my dirty apartment, with the loud Hispanic neighbors, and the shootings outside the windows at night.

Tonight all the hotel employees will witness a nauseating display of affection, and I won’t have to clean up our messy room in the morning, because that will be someone else’s job.

“You’re totally badass,” I say, watching Brendon walk away from me and into the bathroom, so he can try and comb some of the gel out of his hair, “for telling everyone to fuck off earlier.”

He shrugs, not giving me his full, if any, attention. “I do what I have to.” He mumbles.

I think back to earlier in the evening, dancing with kids I used to go to school with, kids who now seem so juvenile.

I think back to boys and girls approaching Brendon; does he want to dance? Because that’s not cliché.

He never gave them a reason. I think that’s what I liked the most; that he just said ‘no’.

I love that he can be so vague, so unclear, and not give a shit about it.

“You know,” he says, walking out of the bathroom and flopping down next to me on the bed, “I’m usually only attracted to good-looking people.”

I frown, watching him as he pulls off his bow-tie. “Okay?”

“But for you, I think I can make an exception.”

“Good to know.” I chuckle; and it’s not hollow. It’s real laughter, just small and ironic.

It’s talking.

A back and forth of the English language; we are communicating.

We do this for hours.

Actually, it may only be a few minutes, but he never shuts up, so for me, it feels like hours.

So, we do this for hours. Until our eyelids become heavy, the once light folds of skin now drooping down to encase our soft-tissue orbs in a wrapping of flesh and eyelashes. This is me yawning; this is me sleeping.

I wake up, an eleven-thirty wake-up call from the front desk; “Mr. Urie? This is the wake-up call you requested.”

Only, I’m not Mr. Urie, so I hang up the phone and go back to sleep.

I’d like to continue to be wrapped in appendages that don’t belong to me, and feather-down blankets, and 2,000-something thread-count sheets, heating, and symphonic music crawling across the floor from the speakers of the television into my tired ears.

But eventually, he wakes up.

He wakes up, and he’s so predictably pissed that I slept through the wakeup call.

“Seriously, Ryan?” He frowns, pulling on his jeans quickly. “My parents wanted me home like, two hours ago.”

I shrug, slowly tugging my shirt over my head.

“I wanted to be around you more. That much is obvious, seeing as you don’t have any missed calls.”

“That sounds really stupid.”

I shrug again, because I love him more, and we both know it, and I’m as petty as a third grader.

“Ryan. Ryan, we need to get a cab, and go home. And you’re paying, because the limo was supposed to take me home, but I was asleep, you douche.”

“But I paid for the limo!” I frown, because if we’re speaking in terms of technicalities, I’ve already paid for his ride. It’s not my fault he missed it.

Well.

Maybe it is.

“Shut up. No. I don’t want to hear it.”

I frown, taking my time with putting the rest of my clothes on.

By the time I’ve finished, the cab is already waiting outside the hotel, it had been for a few minutes, and the meter is running.

“I hate you so much right now.” Brendon frowns as I climb into the cab next to him.

It takes all of fifteen minutes to get to Brendon’s house from the hotel.

I pretend not to think of him at all in the thirty minutes back to my apartment.

Not a thought of Brendon crosses my mind.

Not one at all.

Except that I’m a terrible liar, and I’ve never been good at using my imagination.