Lance
I stood firm and almost motionless with the rest of the tightly packed people inside the elevator of the mall, everyone wearing the very same tense and doleful expressions appropriate to an evening after a long tiring day. I’m not claustrophobic at all so it’s not a problem being packed in a steel box along with everybody who works at the mall. However, the smell of a long tiring day was very much evident the moment you enter the elevator and I had to endure this kind of shit every time I time out of my day job.
As the elevator slides down towards the ground, I felt the titillating buzz of my phone from the pocket of my tight jeans. With so much difficulty, I tried extricating it with my elbow pressing unpleasantly unto some unspecified flabby portion of a suited old paunchy man right beside me. Having been successful at pulling my phone out, I swiped the unlock button to read a message. The message was from one of my friends, Timothy telling me to hurry up and that they are already inside the club where Dianna will be performing later this evening. I quickly checked the time and it’s just 6:36. It’s still relatively early and they’re already asking me to hurry up. I’m pretty much certain that Dianna’s performance will start at 9pm. She’s always scheduled to perform at 9pm as the opening act of the night. I don’t see any reason as to why they are forcing me to hurry up when it’s basically dusk. I was planning on going home first with my plans of having a quick shower and change my clothes suited for the holiday night.
I’m going to have an educated guess and say that they have missed me so much mostly because of the underlying fact that we only see each other every once in a while. We’re all busy dealing with our own adult shit so we only hang out if time’s aligning perfectly with each of our schedules.
Finally, after five floors, the dinging sound of the stopping elevator was like the shortest music to my ears. I can finally breathe freely as I jumped out of the metal box as soon as the metal plates slid open. I walked faster towards the waiting area and I had opted to ride a taxi going home rather than taking the bus which would just take hours.
By the time I got to my apartment space, I jumped right into the shower. The water felt cool and refreshing as I rubbed the soap all over my body. It was just a quick shower but I felt refreshed, galvanized and ready to party with my friends.
By the time I arrived at The Babylon club, every single one of my friends were already present and just as I suspected, they were already half drunk, their cheeks slightly blushed with a shade of pinkish red. I looked around and for the first time in what seemed like forever, we are all complete.
"Man, you came really late." Pulling me by the arm, Bradey spoke as loud as he could.
“It’s just 8pm, Bradey. What part of that makes me late?” I blurted out knowing that the night truly starts at 9pm. The night basically hasn’t started yet and they are already half-ass drunk. If it’s Dianna, I’ll give her a big pass because she’s going to perform later and she always gives a good performance worthy of dollars if she’s a little tipsy and her muscles are all prepped for some sick splits and death drops.
“Whatever, man! You’re still late. You know we only meet once in a blue moon.” Bradey trailed.
Bradey was your typical guy having the common height and body built and his faded buzz cut makes him a lot cooler than he actually is. He was the most aggressive back in the earliest of our college days. He was always energetic and was always on the go, and up until now he was still the same person. Aggressive. Energetic. Happy-Go-Lucky.
"How are you doing, Lance? What’s new?" Timothy, scratching the slight stubble on his chin, asked while handing me a bottle of Heineken.
Timothy, on the other hand, was the most thoughtful of the group. He was always the one in charge for asking things like how are you doing, have you eaten, are you sick and those kinds of stuff. He was like the mother of the group, not that he is feminine or some sort but he was really acting worrisome most of the time just like a real concern mother. Perhaps that’s because he was raised alone by his single mother along with her two younger sisters that he had adopted that kind of attitude.
"I’m fine, I’m actually doing fine." I lied. The words struggled to come out of my throat as smooth as possible but it came out nonetheless. Of course I don’t feel perfectly fine but I have to be. This night shouldn’t be all about me at all. It should be about all of us and I have to feel fine just so we would have a perfect night out since we don’t hangout a lot.
"Are you sure?" Dianna entered the floor of conversation, his Lady Gaga inspired blonde wig was still on his head but he had already changed his black maxi dress into a kinky bodysuit.
"What do you mean?" I asked shifting up my expression to a lighter mood. Deep down inside, I was feeling a bit anxious that Dianna had seen right through me.
"Because you look a bit crestfallen when I first came to the café." Consciously blowing puffs of cigarette from his mouth, Dianna sounded so sure about what he just uttered. He’s always been the type of person who always pays attention to emotional expressions, every smile, every roll of eyes, every grimace has a meaning to him.
"I do?" I was indeed a bit crestfallen a while ago but I pressed on denying Dianna’s accusations.
"Don't worry Lance, you'll get over it soon." The quality of cheerfulness in Bradey's tone was crystal clear.
"Cheers!" Timothy began perfectly changing the weird air in the room. "To Lance and whatever’s holding him back!" And they all raised what they are holding, whether it’s a can or a glass, into the air.
"And cheers to Lance finding someone new again!" Bradey followed up shifting the attention back to me once again.
"And to getting his heart broken once again soon!" Dianna added jokingly and every one of them laughed.
I raised my beer along with them and just let out a laughter. True friends do really tease you more and even if it hurts at least it's the truth.
We all continued drinking. Timothy, Bradey and I were all having beer while Dianna was having a cocktail with extra shots of vodka. We resumed catching up with each other until the moment Dianna had to leave to prepare for the opening of the drag performance for the night. The host of the night’s line up climbed towards the stage and hatched a few jokes before eventually introducing the opening act.
“Our opening act this Thursday night is our very own diva, the one and only Dianna Luxxxe.” The host announced and the music began playing as Dianna slowly emerged from the curtains.
“Yeeeeaaah!!! That’s my baby right theeeere!” Bradey, standing right in front of me screamed at the top of his lungs. He was even jumping in excitement and I can clearly see how proud he was to be friends with Daniel or in this case, Dianna Luxxxe. It’s quite endearing to be honest, even knowing the fact that Bradey’s straight as fuck, he’s not ashamed of having a gay friend in Daniel and a bisexual in me.
LanceDianna’s performance was just as sickening as what we’ve all been expecting from her. We don’t get to see a lot of his performance but every time we do, he’s giving it his all. He performed a total of five songs and probably earned a lot of cash than the next drag queen’s following the line-up. We saw a lot of people really cheering and screaming to her lip-sync performance and they kept on throwing cash at him.I met Daniel, Timothy and Bradey during my freshmen year in college and honestly they were the first group of friends that I’ve met. We just instantly clicked and that was the point where I regret not making a lot of friends back in high school. I was so focused on being the golden boy and being the perfect student that I greatly missed the real thrill that high school life has to offer.I remember those early college days when Daniel was still very much hidden in the
Jayler“How’s your studies going, Jayler?” My mom asked when I got to the breakfast table this morning.It was just a normal conversation that me and sister go through once every week so it was basically expected. My mom’s always asking and checking on us every chance she gets.“Good. Everything’s doing great.” I replied which was certainly the case. Everything’s doing great at school and there’s absolutely nothing to hide. Well, except for the stuff that I’ve been doing, the partying and all of that shit.“Are you sure about that?” My mom uttered expressing her uncertainty.“Maaaa, you know I have been doing good at school. You’ve seen proof time and time again.” I replied slightly annoyed that she was unsure of me when she clearly knows that I haven’t sucked at school. She had see
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JaylerI stared blankly at the vintage looking crucifix hanging idly at the door of Sister Salvador’s office. The crucifix appeared as if it’s been hanging there for over a century or even more than that. It’s definitely looking not that dusty, perhaps it’s been receiving far better care than most of the other crucifix hanging at every classroom.I wondered how many head nuns have been here before the time of Sister Salvador.Was she the first and only cold-hearted nun to ever become the head of this Catholic school?My heart began to race the moment I raised my hand to knock on the door. It became apparent to me that I’m not ready to face this moment quite yet. Still, I don’t have any other choice but to face this rather than delay it.I paused for a moment and closed my eyes. I tried to search for a bit of courage and I may have found an iota of it. For once, I was hoping that the head of this school will cut me some slack and hopefully doesn’t end up pushing the expulsion. I took a
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LanceCoffee shops are one of the best places to hang out and have a good conversation with someone but if there's one thing that I hated about coffee shops, that is it's where all of the long and poisonous tentacles of several networking companies thrive. It's where they spread their self-structured pathological lies in order to convince their victim into joining their company. A total scam. It became clear to me that I wasn’t set up for a blind date but I was set up for this bullshit of a scam.Networking companies are not bad totally and that’s only if you're at the upper line of the pyramid but if you're one down under, most likely the bottom of it, there's nothing bad like the spawning discrepancies and failures and lies at that. People are just investing their money for little to nothing in return.This was aggravating to me. Hitting the streets, my feet walked faster and faster asthough I was a galloping horse in a horse-racing. I didn’t want to look back even though I know th