Wonderland
By: Rob Browatzke
Releasing February 3rd, 2015
Lyrical Press/Kensington
Blurb:
Boy
Meets Boy. Boy Loses Boy.
Boy
Goes to Wonderland…
After
six months of hot-and-heavy dating, Alex is ready to say goodbye to the sex-drugs-and-dance-till-dawn
lifestyle and settle down with the love of his life, Steven. He even bought an
engagement ring. But when Steven finds an illicit party favor in Alex’s pocket,
the powder hits the fan. Steven breaks it off, and Alex heads out to drown his
sorrows—in Wonderland…
The
hottest, hippest nightclub in town, Wonderland is where every boy’s dreams come
true. Where the DJ, Hatter, spins the maddest tracks, the Caterpillar sells the
trippiest drugs, and the Queen of Hearts sends every drag diva off with her
head. Still, Alex can’t stop thinking about Steven—even while being seduced by
a pair of twinks who are tweedlehot and tweedlehotter. Things only get weirder
when Alex learns that Steven is missing—and an anonymous phone call warns him that
he’ll never see Steven again…unless he eats this, drinks that, and dives deeper
down the rabbit hole of decadence. This certainly isn’t just another weekend—in
Wonderland…
Excerpt:
Excerpt:
Chapter One
I looked around the club and couldn’t believe no one seemed to care.
The party was still going on! In the booth, the Hatter was on the decks,
spinning away, without a worry in the world, and below him, on the dance floor,
it was a sea of bodies, shirtless, glittered, glistening. Strobes flashed and
lasers wove among the crowd, and heads were thrown back, hands in the air, in
ecstasy. On Ecstasy, maybe. Who knew? Sure enough,
the Caterpillar was at his table, and people visited him briefly, their money
for his drugs, and then they were off to the bathroom, to snort, to drop, to
bump whatever he’d sold them.
The air vibrated. It was the bass pounding off the dance floor, it
was a hundred conversations being yelled out over the din. Here, the twins, in
their matching tanks, eyes closed, muscles bulging, as they gyrated together in
a cage. There, a flock of mindless twinks, fluttering about in the drama of the
moment. Didn’t they know? Didn’t they care?
I sipped my gin and cran, and shook my head. I wanted to scream!
Wanted to grab some passing boy and shake him till he
understood. Maybe he’d only mattered to me. Maybe I was the only one who
really loved him. Maybe to everyone else, he’d just been a face in
the crowd, just one nameless pretty boy among all the other nameless pretty
boys.
From the first moment I laid eyes on him though, getting into his
white VW Rabbit, he had been so much more to me than just some nameless pretty
boy. Sure, right then, he’d just been nameless and pretty, but for the brief
second his gaze met mine across the parking lot, we connected. In those few
seconds, I imagined a hundred scenarios, and in all of them, we ended up with a
white-picket -fence,
happy-ever-after in Suburbia, away from this sea of smooth bodies, fast beats,
and hard drugs.
Away from Wonderland.
But no, now he was gone, and the party was still going, and I was
still sitting here, on my perch at the bar, where I sat night in and night out,
watching the freak-show train -wreck I
called my life. And no one in this club could give a shit. Give a bump maybe,
or get shittered, but actually care? Actually reach out and genuinely connect
with another human being?
Unlikely.
The Hatter spun, and the Caterpillar sold, and the people danced,
and I sat there, staring at my ice cubes, thinking it was time to go home,
knowing I would order one more. It was a Friday night, and that’s what I did.
What we all did. We left our real world, our nine-to-fives,
our condos in the sky, and we came down here, under the traffic, to a dirty
little hole that lit up with beautiful lights, and even more beautiful people.
“Another?”
It was Brandon, beautiful and blond, all abs to the front, all
amazing ass to the rear, and he was leaning across the bar. His eyes were blue,
and my drink was empty.
“Sure.” His fingers brushed the back of my hand as he took away my
empty, replaced it with another.
“On me,” he said, and he was back to the line-up. I
watched him for a while, doing the graceful dance of the bartender. He spun
about, pouring shots, cracking beer, dispensing drinks and flirts and seven- dollar
ounces of happiness.
I twirled the drink around in my hands. I really had had enough, and
I knew I should go, but I hoped he’d come. Still. Even though the Hatter had
already announced last call for the first time. Even though the last thing
Steven had said to me was that he never wanted to see me again. He couldn’t
have meant it though. It was the heat of the moment and when he calmed down,
when we’d both calmed down, we’d work it out. He’d come down those stairs, and
through the crowd, and he’d take me by the hand and lead me to the dance floor,
and with our bodies pressed together, we would kiss under the strobe, like we
did that first night, and everything would be the way it was.
“You have five minutes left until last call,” the Hatter counted
down on the mic, and Kesha mixed with One Direction, and the
twinks squealed and the dance floor, already full, bulged with more people, one
big writhing mass of beautiful, tragic homos. And not one of them knew or cared
that he was gone, and it was over, and my drink was empty again.
“Brandon!” I yelled as he spun past me, dropping drinks down at the
other end of the bar.
“Another?”
“Make it two,” I said, and slid a twenty towards him.
He dropped off the drinks and my change, and I took the drinks, left the
change. It was just money. And his ass was easily worth the tip.
I pushed back my stool, lurched to my feet, drink in each hand, and
fought my way through the crowd. Eyes went up and down me, in that judging homo
way. My eyes went up and down the people I passed, just as judging. I wove my
way through fat straight girls and their skinny gay best friends, past the
plaid-wearing lesbians playing pool in the corner, my eyes on the Caterpillar.
I knew I shouldn’t. I knew Steven wouldn’t like it.
But he hadn’t come. And if all these people didn’t care, why should
I?
“Alex!” I heard my name as an arm wrapped around my waist. An arm
attached to the gleaming torso of one of the twins. He pulled me into him, and
I lifted my drinks over his shoulders as we hugged, as we kissed each other’s
cheeks. “How’s your night?”
“It’s a night,” I said,
sipping my drink, my eyes darting past whichever twin this was to the table in
the corner, where the Caterpillar watched and waited. “Yours?”
“Where’s Steven?”
There it was. His name. Hearing it made my chest tighten. “He didn’t
come out tonight.”
“Too bad! Come dance with us!” He went to take me by the hand as his
look-alike came up and grabbed me by the
other. I felt my drink spill down my arm.
“No, I was just headed home. I—"
“One dance?” Two matching smiles, four matching dimples, four
sparkling green eyes, so much muscle. How could I say no? And with Steven not
here, why should I say no?
And then we were on the dance floor, hands in the air, and I had one
in front of me, grinding back into my crotch, and one behind me, grinding into
my butt, and all around me, people danced and laughed and drank, and the lights
were bright, and the music was wordless and fast, and faster and faster we
danced, and I finished my drinks and threw back my head, and let myself get
lost in the moment.
Steven hadn’t come. I had waited and waited and waited, and he
hadn’t come. He had made his choice. The twin behind me was kissing my neck. I
tilted my head back and met his lips with mine. He tasted like berries.
I twisted around so we were facing each other. Behind me, the other
one lifted up my shirt, and I let him take it off. His lips were on my
shoulders, and I paused briefly, thinking how I must look between their tanned
and toned bodies. But then the one behind me slid a hand into my pants and I
stopped thinking. And we danced and we kissed, sweat and skin and sweet sweet
sin.
In the mirror that ran along the dance -floor,
I saw us, and what a sight we were, the three of us, three among the many, and
it was wonderful and it was beautiful and it was wrong. It wasn’t Steven. And
there, at the end of the mirror, I could see the Caterpillar’s reflection, as
he sat there, beer in hand, and watched and waited.
Waited for me?
I squirmed out from between the twins, and their hands followed mine
until the crowd separated us, and I looked back at them. Their hands had found
each other, and they were kissing, and people watched as they danced, because
the twins were beautiful and shirtless and gleaming, looking enough like actual
brothers to be forbidden, taboo, exciting. I wound my way across the floor and
up the stairs, and sat down across from the Caterpillar.
He smiled at me, raised his beer in salute. I raised an eyebrow in
question, and I could feel the desperation on my face. It was late. What if he
was out? He nodded, and I could feel the relief and the guilt and the
excitement all mingle inside me. I slid my hand across the table, money hidden
in my palm. He shook my hand, and I could feel the money disappear, feel the
familiar little plastic Baggie.
Away from the Caterpillar I went, and back through the throng, now
even more frenzied as the Hatter announced, “Last song of the night.” People
were flooding onto the dance floor, and I was going against the stream, headed
to the bathroom, where the strobes and lasers and swirling color went away, in
an ugly fluorescent glare. I locked the stall behind me, ignoring the water all
over the floor, the clumped toilet paper, the unflushed bowl.
I held up the Baggie, flicked it to loosen it,
opened it up. I dipped in my key, scooped out some powder, and inhaled. My body
tensed and then loosened. I was floating on fire.
Tucking the Baggie into my jeans, I checked my
reflection in the mirror, looking for any telltale signs of drug use. Finding
none, and not really caring either way, I went back out in the club, where
everything seemed more real now. The music was just a little clearer, the
lights were just a tad brighter. The twins were still lip-locked on the dance -floor.
I fought my way towards them, and reached them just as the
song faded away into the silence of a hundred conversations, laughter and
shrieks and disjointed words.
I was high and alive, and I had a twin on each side, and as the
three of us found our way out of Wonderland and into the world above, I looked
around the club one last time, and right then, I didn’t care either.
Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23356758-wonderland?from_search=true
Author Info:
Rob Browatzke has been writing for as long as he can
remember, and is pretty darn excited for someone else to be reading his stuff
finally! When it comes to gay bars and booze and drugs and drama, he knows what
he's talking about. He has over fifteen years of experience working in gay
clubs in Edmonton, Alberta, and his current Wonderlounge is every bit as
amazing as Alex's Wonderland. Feel free to stalk him on Facebook and Twitter
(@robbrowatzke).
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