User:Fish/Damon's Beginning

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Note: This page descends from a branching story called Dreams Incorporated. Follow the link to start at the beginning.

Start over from the beginning

Damon

With the curtains drawn, the only light in the Dream alcove radiates up from the black Lucite tabletop. Beneath its glossy plastic surface, their computer screens flick idle messages at them, advising them of upcoming attractions, suggesting choices, and displaying hopeful little advertisements for the overpriced refreshments in the lobby. A banner at the bottom welcomes their university.

To one side of the table sits Damon: athletic, swarthy, with a chiseled face and piercing ice-blue eyes. The lighting from below highlights his fabulous skin, deeply tanned even for a Latino man, and free from blemish or impurity. Damon's is the face that many female students dream of, clean of chin, with a wave of black hair swept across his brow in an arc of styling gel. There is a clean-cut quality to him, relaxed and yet lithe, ready to spring. He sits with his hands folded before him, and he looks uncomfortable.

On the opposite side of the table is his lover, Seth, who could scarcely be more opposite: shockingly untidy hair, short, spiked in all directions, bleached at the tips and blue at the roots; two earrings in the left and one in the right; a stud in his lower lip; a generous helping of eyeliner; a gaunt, anemic face with pale, translucent skin; and two layers of clothing, both tattered. The only thing they appear to have in common are their hands, both soft and strong, Damon's to feel the seams on a baseball, and Seth's to feel the strings on a guitar.

Seth reaches out to take Damon's hand, and the other draws his back, glancing uneasily at the curtains.

"They're closed, Damon," Seth says in a soft, gravelly whisper. "Who's going to see us?"

"The computer keeps track," Damon says in a beautiful tenor voice, equally soft. "It must. Didn't you see, it turned on the screens when we sat down?"

"Maybe. I don't know. Who cares? What are you afraid of, somebody's going to spy on us? In here?" Seth sits back and looks on with bemused tolerace. "I'm sure the employees here have much better things to do. They'd be spying on people in the game, not out of it."

Damon hesitates. "Maybe they do. But it just takes once. People talk."

Seth sniffs, and looks idly around the confined booth for a moment, but his gaze returns to contemplation of Damon's features. Damon's face, lit from below, seems to have every strong angle highlighted, and Seth is struck again how handsome it is. "Let me guess," he says. "You told the computer to pick all straight characters for you again."

"Yes."

"Even though you're not," Seth says, and adds, "though we're not."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"People talk," Damon says again.

"It's all on computer," Seth says. "Virtual reality, hon, it's all in your head. Come on, what are they going to do, spy on everybody in every Dream to see what they get up to? It's all private, you know it is. It's the rule."

"People break rules. They don't care if they get caught."

"They don't. You do, though, right? You don't want to get caught, do you? Yeah, you've got that baseball career to think about," Seth says with a hint of bitterness in his voice. "They might not sign you up for a million bucks a year if they think you're gay."

"They might not," Damon says quietly.

"And so what if they don't?" Seth demands. "Then you don't get to play for the Dodgers, big deal. You can't be what you're not. Sure, in a Dream you can," Seth says expansively, and he waves one hand at the computer screen, which churns up new advertising in response to the motion. "In a Dream you can be anything, a man, a woman, a... a whatever. You can even be yourself, hon. Yourself. Ever try it?"

They lock eyes for a moment, and Damon looks down. "I don't want to fight tonight. I just wanted to get together. I had to see you."

"But you—" Seth cuts himself off and he, too, looks away.

"Go ahead," Damon says wearily. "Say it. But I don't want anybody to see me seeing you. Right? Well, it happens to be true. I don't like it, and you don't like it, but face it: we didn't make the world. We just try to live in it. I have ahead of me a career — a potential career," he amends himself, "that isn't very tolerant of anybody who doesn't grunt, scratch and spit. If they found out I was gay, if they saw us together and suspected anything, it'd be all over."

"And meanwhile," Seth says, "you're going to treat me like I was a dead rat. What if you do get that baseball career, Damon? How long are you going to pretend to be what you're not?"

Damon shrugs. "I'm sorry. As long as it takes. If I wash out in spring training, then maybe it'll be time to—"

Seth smiles faintly. "It'll never be the right time for you, hon. I know you. You're the one who's always saying if you fall down, you get back up. That's what your daddy drilled into you when you were a child — not drilled, not that way, I mean ewwwww, he's your dad."

This makes Damon laugh, and for the first time, his discomfort seems to disappear, and his eyes light up. "You always make me laugh," he says. "I don't know how you do it."

"It's because you always need to laugh," Seth says immediately. "Listen to you. It's the twenty-first century. This place is filled with people going into virtual worlds, and you know what? Some of them are men playing women, some of them are women playing men. Some are women even playing lesbians. You know how I know?"

"Your sister," Damon says. "Didn't she used to work at Fantasy Unlimited?"

Seth nods, and rolls his eyes theatrically. "Yes, oh my God, she told some great stories. There was this one guy who specially requested a—"

Damon's face darkens again. "You said there were rules against this," he says. "About giving away other peoples' secret fantasies."

"Yeah," Seth says, and grins devilishly. "Thing is, I don't care if I get caught. That's the nice thing about being a singer in a punk band. Being gay is like free advertising, hon. And breaking rules? I'm all over that, all over it. Punk band — people expect me to get in trouble."

"Maybe," Damon says. "But if you're trying to encourage me to play a gay character here tonight, you're not making me feel better about it."

"You're not listening to what I'm trying to tell you, then. I'm telling you that those people out there don't care. Half of the things you and I do, they've at least tried, most of them. At least tried it in virtual reality, and what's the difference? This isn't 1950 any more. They don't care if we're gay, it's okay. At least, everybody but you thinks it's okay."

Damon is thinking of an answer to that, when the curtains open and light spills into their alcove. Silhouetted against the golden light of the plush red hallway is the meaty outline of Jacob, the team's first baseman. He is only a student, and he isn't nearly the mass of solid muscle he will later become after three seasons in the major leagues and a healthy unregulated dose of illegal steroids, but up close, and smelling overpoweringly of Drakkar Noir and Absolut, Jacob is imposing. Unfortunately, he knows it, and enjoys it.

Jacob looks down at them, while wheels churn in his head, thickly. "What are you doing?"

"Talking," Damon says calmly.

"Oh," Jacob says dully, and contemplates another alcoholic foray into the conversation. "Can we sit in? Our computer's bust."

"So's ours."

"It's on," says the first baseman, pointing a large black thumb at their screen. "Yours is on. See? Ours is bust. We're gonna use yours. Scoot over, me and my girl gonna sit in."

Damon stands up slowly, without making any threatening gestures. He stands erect, and Jacob finds he must look slightly up into Damon's ice-blue eyes. He is taller and, as Jacob has a few shots of vodka slowing him down, Damon is much faster.

"I'm sure your computer is working now," Damon says, quietly. "Why don't you go check it out? We're using this one." He is speaking slowly, diplomatically, as one would to a mad dog, a child, or a terrorist. "Or would you like some help getting it started again?"

"Give it a thump," Seth says with dark humor. "You know, hit it. That always works in the movies."

"Seth," Damon says warningly, without a backward glance, and speaks directly to Jacob again. "I'm sure they're all back on, now. I can help you with yours, if you want." He smiles charmingly at Jacob's girlfriend, a small white girl with an elaborately hairsprayed coiffure and silver hoop earrings, and she meekly tries to take Jacob's beefy arm. Damon recalls her name was Mindy or Mandy from somewhere in the maze of the medical studies building.

Jacob's eyes are flat, without sign of gratitude, or of thought. "What were you talking about?" he asks again, and there is a suspicious curl to his lip. "Your computer works. You wasn't playing. Why was you talking? What about?"

"What did you hear, Jacob?" Damon asks, and his voice drops dangerously low. "Because what I hear is that one of the baseball players showed up drunk tonight. Yeah, I could smell vodka on his breath. Absolut, I think. He was drunk, looked like he was going to pick a fight. Even though drinking the night before a game is against the team rules. A guy could get kicked off the team for that. That's what I hear. Did you hear about that? It'd be a shame if that got around." He waits a moment to see if this sinks in, and a trace of fear registers in the big man's eyes, slowly. "So," Damon says, more lightly. "What did you hear?"

"Come on, Jake, let's go," Mindy or Mandy says, taking Jacob's arm more firmly. This time, he turns away from their alcove and lumbers off with her. Once, he glances back, but Damon hasn't moved.

"Damn, you're good," Seth says, as Damon returns to his seat and draws the curtains closed.

"I've dealt with him before," Damon replies. "He's not too difficult, once you know what buttons to push."

"The button he needs," Seth says, "is Off. Or maybe Mute."

"The buttons we need," Damon says, "are right here. Come on, what are we going to play?"

The two young men each read their separate screens.

"Just as I thought," Seth says, looking over the options. "You asked for all straight characters. Look at this one, though. You picked a straight woman?"

Damon shrugs. "I hear some of the other guys on the team try it."

"You're just trying to fit in, then," Seth says sourly. "As usual."

"And you? Look at this," Damon says, pointing. "The cabin boy with a difference? Good God, did you request a character like that?"

"I told them I didn't mind playing gay or straight, man or woman," Seth explains. "I filled out the form when I bought my ticket. It's fun. You remember what fun is? You should try it."

"Fun, I like. I can handle fun. Seriously. A character that was written by monkeys? No thanks. Cabin boy with a difference." Damon snorts derisively.

"Such a shame that you're playing all straight," Seth says wistfully. "Check that out — Roman centurions. Big, burly, manly warriors. Didn't you see 300?"

"Yeah, I did. I bought a copy. I watched it with you, remember? I dunno, how about archaeology?"

"As long as there isn't too much work," Seth said. "I want a little action, if you know what I mean."

ROMANCE: The Secret Map (Golden Age of Piracy)

ADVENTURE: Empires At War (Magica Roma)

THRILLER: The Curse of the Scorpion King (Tomb Explorer)