ORANGE MESSIAHS by Scott A. Sonders (books to read this summer .txt) 📕

more to talk about.

It makes me more than just a teensy bit uncomfortable. I don’t like my brother being good buddies with a guy that’s seen me naked, and has been inside of me in the physical and emotional sense of the word.

I have a confession. We had unbelievably great sex. I had the first multiple orgasm I’ve ever had in my life. I’m sure of four and maybe five times in less than a few hours. But that’s not what my confession is about.

My mother, whose religious views are more intense than mine, would think sex was something for Confession. But this has been bothering me on a huge scale. It’s something I’d better explain to my therapist, only I’m not sure how to go about it without sounding like a horrible bitch. Without sounding like the kind of girl who I usually dislike – because she did exactly what I did.

I told Jonah that this had been the first time I’d slept with a guy on the first date. I lied. Maybe it’s because every time I do this, I intend it to become a relationship. I almost never intend it to be a one-night-stand. What I intend has only worked out about half the time, but nevertheless it is what I intend.

Each time I fail, I try even harder. So this time I was trying to communicate how special he felt to me – and how special this time was. If I’d admitted that I’d also slept with others on the first date, maybe Jonah would have felt less than unique. Maybe it would have cheapened the experience in his eyes. Maybe it would have cheapened me. I detest feeling cheap.

And so, I lied. Even before we did it, I lied. And after we did it, I felt even cheaper than what I’d been trying to prevent. I cried. I said a Hail Mary and asked the Virgin to forgive me for lying. I asked her to forgive me for being so cheap.

Now, I’m looking across at Jonah’s sleeping face. He looks so real and vulnerable. He feels like someone I could love forever. He looks like the one that’s “meant to be.” •

Story V:

BY THE SKIN OF A WHALE
(as told by Jonah Cain to Catherine Nicholas)


It was the start of a warm winter day. It was the kind of morning in L.A. that some working stiff in Cleveland sees on the morning news as his own sun up is falling down on him in a paralyzing snow storm. It was the kind of morning that the same working stiff thinks about just after watching helplessly while he’s stopped at a traffic light on an icy uphill street, and his ten year old Ford Fairlane slides into the bumper of the brand new Cadillac behind him.

This city and I were a lot alike. We were too young, too wild, too erratic, and too unaware of own mortality. We’d been clinging to an era in transition, an era that had invisibly declined. We were old souls in new bodies. We were still growing, awkward. We had edges that needed smoothing.

Los Angeles. The City of the Angels. La-La-Land. The Big Orange where Hollywood Boulevard is paved in gold and everyone wants to be a movie star.

Except me. I just wanted a girlfriend and some W.A.M. Some walkin’ around money so that I could afford to take a girl to the Hamburger Hamlet on a full tank of gas, with a year’s worth of auto insurance paid up front.

I should’ve been afraid of trouble. The seasons had been filled with promise, but it was after the fall. The soft green leaves of “make love not war” had begun to mutate. What had always been was coming around again. “Love” was often no more than another commodity traded in the same market as hard drugs, and “war” had been laid bare as the international Monopoly game played with hard cash. Three-piece suits marched where Birkenstocks had meandered. Mercenaries with PhD’s had taken the place of undergrads and free love.

It took a measure of 20/20 hindsight for me to realize any of that, but on this particular L.A. day I was simply trying to pull my neck out of some of the hot water that I’d gotten into. It was 10 A.M., and I was already hustling through the alcoves of the Century City Mall, intent on getting a much needed cash refund for the gift of an ugly jacket that I’d never wear.

Of course, the word “gift” is somewhat a euphemism. Actually, I’d “permanently borrowed” the jacket from a former roommate who’d resisted paying me his overdue poker debt. I’d justified this indiscretion with what I termed as a Marxist belief that I was merely “liberating” the jacket into the hands of the proletariat, or more exactly, my hands.

Somehow, I’d expected that it would be easier to get forgiveness than permission for this act of compensation. However, Mr. Roommate had proved small in forgiveness but large in muscle and meanness. I was on the tall side, but when things boiled down to mortal combat I was probably much closer to the color pink than black in a karate belt.

So, wanting to live another day without the need for corrective cosmetic surgery, I’d opted for the short move rather than the long explanation. For this reason, I was in dire need of a deposit on the first and last month’s move-in for my new digs in Silverlake.
Although ugly, the jacket was an Armani. A big cash refund would easily buy me two month’s rent with enough left over for a couple of concert tickets to see Bob Marley and the Wailers at the Shrine Auditorium that coming week-end.


* * * * * * * * *

It was the first morning of winter, day 22 in December, an ostensibly meaningful number. Numerologists say multiples of “11” symbolize mastery. Builders of things are “22’s.” Mystics say the name Los Angeles equals an “11.” But I hadn’t yet built or mastered anything. When I walked into the Broadway department store at that point in time, I was still singing Good Day Sunshine by the Beatles, and expecting “all good things would come to those who wait.” I’d no receipt for the sweater. But still, it was new with a crisp department store label. I felt confident.

“Confidence,” though, soon became but a vague memory. When I saw her, my steel knees de-solidified, and normally hard bone became the consistency of tapioca pudding. I walked slowly, trying to look casual, through a tangle of female fashion. I was the figure of a man on an Etch-A-Sketch. Iron filings were drawn or erased with the swipe of a magnetic female hand. Feigning a cool veneer and as much aplomb as I could muster, I dragged my unwilling legs across the quiet carpeting to the ark of the goddess. Meeting her and getting a refund on the jacket had been the twofold goal of today’s mission.

And it was just as Carlos had predicted. I knew it was her. I don’t know how, but I knew it. She was the sister that Carlos had been pitching to me. She was the sister that he’d refused to show me a photo of or describe in any detail how she looked. That Carlos was a crafty one. He’d realized that a photograph or description would have clinched the sale well beforehand.

She was about the same height as her brother, maybe five feet and seven or eight inches. But where Carlos had a thick, muscular build, she was lanky with a narrow waist. Her black hair was cropped short, almost butch. It was oddly fascinating, sexually appealing, added to by huge, coffee kiss eyes that would send Bambi into a fit of jealousy. I glanced at her nametag “RAMONA,” a name that appealed to my imagination, that painted pictures in my wannabe architect’s soul. I’d no intention of buying any clothing, but I did see a window of opportunity.

“Excuse me miss,” I ventured, “but could you help me avert a fashion accident waiting to happen.” I swallowed hard at the subterfuge about to be invented, but forged ahead. “I’m trying to find one of those babydoll dresses for my, uh, sister. You look about her height and weight — could you tell me what size you wear?”

“About a 4. Can I help you?” Her voice harmonized with natural good looks. It seemed she had no clue as to who I was. Carlos’ plan was going smoothly.
“Oh yeah, if you’ve got a minute,” I faltered trying for the right words but could only manage, “that’d be cool.”

She nodded in tacit agreement and motioned with her hand for me to follow. I would have shadowed her through Death Valley, at the hottest part of the day. As was, my weak knees only had to trail her for about a dozen yards, until we reached a rack of short gauzy items. Her long fingers deftly thumbed through the mini-dresses, stopped at one, lifted it out and held it up for approval.
“Yes!” She announced the single word triumphantly, through two expansive rows of flawless teeth that were as white as the dots on dominoes. “Come take a look at this. We just got it in stock this week. Your sister is gonna love it.” She stroked the fabric, lovingly. “Isn’t this totally fine?”

She was standing close now. Her face was maybe two feet from mine. Her smell was fresh scrubbed with hint of Jean Naté. I was wishing the fabric of the dress in her hands was the bareness of my own skin. But I didn’t bat an eye or miss a beat; adrenaline had taken over. “Absolutely! It looks totally fine...on the hanger.”

I hesitated. “You know, I’d really need to see it on my sister. But I also want it to be a surprise. – I think you’re both about the same build. She’s not as pretty as you, though, but, well, maybe you could do me a huge favor – that is, if you’ve got a spare moment—and try it on. That way, I could see what it really looks like.” I was praying that she wouldn’t refuse; the store was nearly deserted.

She hesitated at first demurely, continuing with a suggestion of business in her voice, “Okay, but it’s not store policy. Usually, if the purchase isn’t satisfactory, you can just return it within thirty days for a full refund.”

She paused for a heartbeat, lowered her voice somewhat huskily and continued with what seemed to be a detectable flirtation, “Well, you do look honest. And just as long as you wait outside the dressing room.” She hesitated again, coyly, then added, “You’re not some pervo, are you. I mean, you’re not a Peeping Tom, or anything?”

“Well, I can’t swear that I won’t be tempted. But you’ve got my word as a former Boy Scout. No peeking!”
She disappeared for some brief but anxious moments amid the sounds of shuffling and silk sliding over smooth skin. When she returned, she looked glorious and triumphant. “Well, tell the truth now,” she commanded. “It’s terrific, isn’t it?” Then she added, with perfect sales timing, “Will that be cash or charge?”

Again, I hesitated just long enough to carefully look her up and down. Then trying not to sound like a cad,