B1ue

I voted No one, because I just don't care for Seth, and I think that it would be hilarious if the person Luke was interested in was Eddie, and Rory is just a substitute. Not that I think this is likely, and I also share Bao's reasoning.

I liked the latest chapter of "Mr. Black..." that was posted to Nifty, though it made me a bit sad. I hope you all have a happy holiday celebration. -Blue

I have finals this week too, so here I am, instead of writing my paper and studying. Good Luck with yours, Green. -Blue

When I was about 11 or so, my cat (actually, my older sister's cat, but the cat herself made her choice of favorite clear) was pregnant, and about fit to burst. We were going down to Los Angeles to visit relatives for Easter, packing, and at some point in the process my cat had waddled up into the back of the Blazer we were taking, and proceeded to settle down for the trip. We just barely discovered her in time to take her out. The cat was an outdoor cat, not feral, but definetly self-sufficient and willing to take on the wilderness that we lived in, just outside of Yosemite National Park. Travel didn't bother her none, but my mom decided that the trip would be too much stress on a cat in her condition. My mom hates cats, so I didn't believe her, but I couldn't argue. Three days later, we came back, and there were four kittens mewing in our garage. Boo-Boo (my sister named her) looked annoyed at us, and I wondered at the time if she had planned on having our assistance at crucial moment. But whatever, we cheered, and as soon as we had unpacked, she began moving the kittens one by one into my bedroom, in fact my sock drawer, where they remained until Boo-Boo saw fit to take them back outside. It was at this time that I discovered my mild allergy for cats. I think Boo-Boo knew about the allergy all along, and that is why she had adopted me in the first place. At least the kittens learned to use the litter box almost instantly.

This afternoon I was talking to my coworkers about a party I went to a couple weeks ago with a lot of them. AT the party I not only told my manager that I thought she was hot, but I think I kissed her cheek. Since it was mostly her fault I got as drunk as I did (you have to take another shot!), I don't feel bad about that. I also danced with several girls, and blew off a guy that was making his interest in me pretty freakin obvious. This sort of behavior has gone on for quite some time, but it was the first time they had witnessed it. The consensus reached is that I am secretly straight, but only when drunk, sort of like how straight girls will make out with each other when sufficiently sloshed. And yes, someone made that exact comparison. I know the parallel isn't exact, but your story reminded me of mine.

Your life makes me happpy that mine is boring. I don't think I'd survive a mile in your shoes. I don't know if I feel sorry for a confused boy like Chaz (who was straight, what, three weeks ago?), or if I'm vicariously angry at his not letting you know he had feelings before he planted a kiss on you. I know I'm always tempted to deck people who pull that stuff on me, though the only person I did hit tried to cop a feel while he kissed me. Your restraint and retreat is something I congratulate you for. I feel evil saying it, but I cna't wait to see what develops next.

I assume Luke and Aaron were boyfriends at some point. Think about it: two teenage guys, out to each other, good friends, and that found each other attractive, not to mention living next door to one another for easy access; do y'all think there is a shot in hell they weren't "in love?" As far as Aaron and Rory's future, I don't really see one. Aaron made his (well deserved) annoyance with Rory pretty clear, so I don't think they'll be talking for a bit. I could be wrong, and this is the point I am most likely to be wrong on. Besides, Aaron has no sympathy or patience for Rory's personal problems, and that will kill the relationship beore it starts, though I cna see Rory having sex with Aarn just to piss off the others in his house. I guess that Luke, once he's out to Rory (officially) and the whole " 'I'm gay.' 'Me too!' " nonsense is settled, will probably be trying to give him as much space as possible so as to not make the twerp feel uncomfortable. Rory is in no condition to have a relationship right now. He's got some good reasons, but he's also too immature.

He lies. He lies terribly. I only WISH I got to see that chapter. I'm dying to find out why the hell Ms. Moore went into a strip joint.

Happy 22nd Birthday Dom. I was going to write about people in suburbia, like the characters in Dom's stories, but I don't really know about people in suburbia. Now hicks, hicks I know. California ones, anyways. Everybody that reads this wish for rain.-Gabriel ********************** Whiskey Jack Says I Love You I'm the only one of my friends that can drink whiskey without making a face. It's very impressive at parties, but then, when you're 18 living in a small town, that doesn't take much. "Do for me," Jessie says in my ear, and as I slam back my fifth shot of Jack Daniels, I know I'm doing it for her. "That's my Whiskey Jack," Jessie coos, and gives me a kiss for me troubles. I kiss her back, deep but gentle. She loves her Whiskey Jack. We leave the kitchen and my circle of fans to find Linda. Linda is what city folk and other rude people would call a Lipstick Lesbian. Pretty, pale, and hair as red as a Target employee uniform, she was homecoming queen and president of the student council, and the only girl in the world to claim that she slept her way through the cheerleading squad. Boys crawl over her like bees on a summer barbeque. Jessie and I find Linda on the second floor, in one of the bedrooms by herself in the dark, watching the stars turn in the night. Normally, she'd be cracking jokes at Jessie's and my expense, telling us to keep away lest we infect her with our breeder germs. But tonight she lets us sit on either side of her without a peep. Jessie puts a hand on Jessie shoulder and asks, "Alright, what girl's ass do we have to kick? Just name the little heartbreaker, and I'll take care of it." Jessie cracks her knuckles for effect. Four years ago, Jessie was the arm wrestling champion over the entire eighth grade class. She's no longer the strongest person our age, but she still can and will kick any redneck's ass at whim, and for real big boys she has a shotgun. She's my little country girl. Linda laughs at Jessie, but I can tell it is forced. "There's no one. Well, you can kick Denise's ass, but that's just on general principles." Denise narrowly lost out the homecoming queen vote. She did not take the loss well. "Seriously, what's wrong?" I ask her. "Come on! High school's over. We've escaped, we survived! Celebrate." Linda does not even smile, and what little humor she faked is gone. "You mean you escaped. Or, will escape. Me, I'm stuck here for life," Linda says. I get confused easily by pretty women, even sober. "What?" "Whiskey Jack, you're going to leave us pretty soon, and never come back," Linda says. To my surprise, Jessie nods in agreement. "That's true," she says. "Two months from now you'll be across the country, living a whole new life. And we'll be here, doing the same things we've always done." "Hey, don't be sad," I say, reaching across Linda to touch Jessie's face. "I'll visit, as often as I can. I love you, don't I tell you that enough? We'll work something out." "What exactly do you think there is to work out?" Jessie says, like an adult would explain to a very small child. "You know, you know, as soon as people escape this town, they never come back to it. You might visit, but you will never be here to stay. Love me maybe, but baby you're going to leave me for good, come September." She finishes her drink when she says that. Linda does too. I try to talk to them for a couple of minutes, but both girls just stare off into space. Weirded out, I walk back downstairs. By then, the JD has truly hit me, and the walls leap into my way as I make my way to the living room. I look around, and can just make out the face of someone I am very happy to see. I collapse on top of him, thumping him good for showing up two hours after he said he would. "Hiya Jack," he says, "Jessie finally dump your ass?" "No, so you can't have it yet." Ben makes a disappointed cluck with his tongue, and everyone laughs. I snuggle up to him, and let him pet my hair as I lay in his lap. Ben is my best male friend, who trusted me enough to tell me first that he was gay. I was supportive enough that I took him to a gay bar in the city for his 18th birthday last month, where we competed to see who could get more phone numbers (he won). Ben's had a crush on me since forever, but it's more a joke now than anything else. Now, people may think that a small town wouldn't stand for people like Ben and Linda, but folk adapted real quick a few years ago, and since then no one has really cared about anyone's sexuality. That might change next year, when that Jessie isn't there to physically threaten every person that so much as thinks the word "fag," but for now the truce holds. As long as they get their jollies in the city, or with anyone else willing, no one says a word. Ben's had it easier than a lot of the people he's met. "So where is Jessie?" he asks me, walking me from my partial doze. I blink a couple of times at him, and then his words penetrate. "Upstairs with Linda, being a downer." "Really? Well, let's go talk to them. Maybe I can cheer them up." We stumble back up the stairs. Okay, I stumble, leaning hard on Ben's slight frame. A couple people give him thumbs up as he leads me into the bedroom, which if I was sober I doubt I would have found as amusing. But the whiskey is grinning for me. The girls are still there, talking low. They look at us as we walk in, and then turned back to their conversation. "Let's just do it," I hear Jessie whisper. "Do what?" I ask, but I don't get answered. I tell Ben, "Ben, tell them I'll come back. They're going on about some nonsense that once I leave town, I won't come back again." Ben tilts his head, a sign he's thinking. "It's true." "Not you too!" "You might come back, for a little while. But Jack," Ben says. He's the only to not call me Whiskey, "Once you experience what's out there," he gestures to the outside, and I guess the out of town, "how the hell are you going be able to live here again." "Stent isn't that bad," I say. All three say as one, "YES IT IS!" "No one ever comes back here to stay, they can't take it," Jessie says. "Look at my brother." "The army can affect anyone like that." "And my cousins Chris and Heath," Ben adds. I shrug, far too buzzed to think of an easy answer. "Hell, just think about Jake," Jessie says. "He's been gone all year, really." Jake Dire, salutatorian, didn't even wait for the graduation ceremony before he had moved back to Santa Barbara. If anyone ever had a hard-on to leave Stent, it was him. 'They are starting to make sense,' I realize. "Face it Jack," Linda says, "People just leave here. And the ones that stay, well, you've met my sister." She shudders, no doubt imagining Chastity's trailer and the three kids she already has at 22, and the boyfriend that tries to make ends meet by selling drugs to the high school kids, but is too much of a user himself to succeed. "I don't want to end up like that." "Me neither," Ben says. "I can't take staying here. Not without you Jack," the naked honesty in his eyes startles me, and for the first time I realize he loves me. Not like I love him, but Jessie and I love each other. I wonder when that happened, and then I also realize it's been that way all along. The thought that I missed something so obvious scares me sober, just a little. "You're the only thing that kept me going these last few years. If you're gone, Stent has nothing for me." "Not all of us got into a four year college, Jack." This time it's Jessie. "Let's face it, I'm not the brightest crayon in the box. Jake and you were the only one's smart enough to escape that way. I'm supposed to start community in the fall, but I don't know if I can take Stent for that long. I can't be trapped here, not like that." Linda and Ben nod their agreement. "So what are we going to do about it?" Ben asks. It turned out to be a good thing Ben came late to the party, and was still sober. It didn't take the three two hours to pack up everything of value. Nothing that couldn't be carried was taken, and Ben's truck was loaded up quickly. Like the song said, they drove 90 miles an hour towards the city limit sign, and Ben pressed the pedal to the metal before they could change their minds. The three were laughing now, excited. They left notes for their parents to find the next morning, along with empty blankets and closets and bedrooms. They also left me, at the party, too drunk to make it on my own, and too drunk to stop them from doing something stupid. I drank to them every night that summer, happy that they were happy. I hope they'll call me before I leave for New York next week. I'd like to hear their voices, just to know that they're alive. Just to know they escaped.

Thank you Mike. I'll read the article, and think about what you've said. For the record, I hate the prologue that I have, I honestly think the poem is probably enough, but I figured that if I have it written, I might as well put it out so that you all can have as complete a picture of this as possible. The rest of this is the first part of where I really start needing help. I'll probably space these out by weeks, so that people have time to actually look at them.-Pedro ******************* Part 2: You Love Me, But... Chapter 1: La Tortura Tommy yearns for a drink. He can't think of a time he wanted the bitter, burning, blur of alcohol more than at this moment. Anything to muffle the sound of Jake's laughter, and block the sight of Drew, laid out on top of Jake, tickling the younger boy, grasping at handfuls of flesh as Jake bucks wildly underneath. Tommy knows where Jer keeps his good liquor, the quadruple distilled vodka, the gold tequila, and the absinthe, but Jer would instantly notice if so much as a shot was missing, and Tommy does not want to answer the inevitable questions. But still, he is imagining the taste of a good Long Island Ice Tea as he draws. A long, slightly curved sword appears on the page, followed by intricate, gleaming armor and a twisted expression of rapture. Instead of eyes, Tommy leaves two black ovals, and smudges the pastel so that their shadow dominates the face. A loud squeal pulls his attention back to his apartment; Drew's found a new spot on the hyper-ticklish Jake to manipulate: the small of his back. Tommy barely manages not to snort in disgust. If Jake wanted, he could pick the slight Drew off of him and throw him across the room, but he's enjoying himself far too much to do that. That's why Tommy draws a long line of crimson on the green steel of the blade. He's just starting to color the background a copper-orange when Jer walks in wearing a shirt that same color. "Hey y'all," he says, not really looking as he charges through the apartment on his way to change in his room. Though he's probably the only Campus Security Officer that looks decent in the uniform, his medium brown skin complimenting the shirt's color well, he can't stand to wear it. "It's the principle of the thing," he'll tell you. That

I'm new, but I'm in. I need to stop being lazy and write more anyways. As for everyone else even considering, let the creative juices flow! For giving us such a monstrous body of work, something like this is the least we all can do.

I feel ya. Actually, I don't know if you simply don't like sunshine (which is a foreign concept to me), or hate what I hate: rapidly changing weather conditions. I've been whining basically since LAST October that the weather needed to pick a season and stick with it for at least two weeks. Instead, in Santa Barbara we've had rapid patterns that fizzle out after about 8 days and change again. First it will be cool. Then sunny as hell. Then it will rain. Then back to sunshine (I do live in California). The next day it will be raining, foggy, AND sunny just before sunset. My theory is that some sorority or another did a drunken rain dance for Columbus day last year, and the climate has been reeling ever since. But in any case, I hope your weatherman is wrong as much as you do. Best wishes-Pedro

Cruel Summer Prologue: Light Up a Cigarette Jeremy wakes at dawn from a dream about a green-eyed blonde named Joshua. This is not important, or so Jer would have you believe.

Hey, if I was to post a rough draft of a story here, would people be willing to give me feedback? Even minor stuff like grammer and spelling eludes me, so it will be pretty hard for some people to take. My creative writing class called the first section soap opera quality, so that might turn off a lot of people too. But I really need the help, especially the portions I'm writing right now. So yeah, please get your editing hats on and help out a young kid in need. I'm going to post the first third of the story, which my class has thrashed pretty effectively already, and so should be presentable. The next third, which I'm writing now, is in a far less pretty state. -Pedro

Very cool story. I've walked into situations like that before, and it is always embarrassing. I hope you took him up on the dinner idea, he sounds like someone good to know. I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but whatever happened to "No Matter How Far?" I've seen a couple incarnations of it, and I'd like to know what happens next. Or was chapter four the last? I'd like to know what happens, I really really do.