Free My Best Man by Andy Schell

them onto the snowy pavement, and make a run for it before I realize there are no rats in waiting. They must have frozen to death.
     
    Iris congratulates me for making it to her door, and though assures me my sunburned skin will qualify me for the soiree, or at the very least I can chew a piece of pink bubble with my mouth open, I return to the streets to buy a pink thinking it will be sufficient for my debut. Of course, arrives at the party in these incredibly pink, incredibly well-thou out ensembles that border on Broadway set design. The party thrown by an actor magician named Aaron, who happens to live Iris’s building, which is actually a funeral parlor on the floor. Aaron is part of the famous drag entertainer Chad entourage, though I have no idea who Chad Barclay is. Chad working on a play titled Theatrica: She’s Hitched with Librium. love the title and try to be as funny. Of course, that never
    I’m a bit uncomfortable at the party, because everyone is actor or writer, or painter or something worthy, and I realize journey into the skies is kind of an embarrassment. I stop tellin people I’m a steward and just say, “I travel,” in a way that them not ask further.
    Halfway through the party I lose Iris, but decide to find because friendships like hers are what I miss most about my in Dallas, and I’m only in New York for two days. Someone they saw her and Aaron headed for the roof earlier. I scout outside hall and find the steep ladder steps that lead to the in the building’s roof. I climb slowly, because I’m a little and pop my head into the frigid winter night. I hear what like a scuffle. I look to the right and see Iris and Aaron ten feet away on the roof. Aaron is driving her back forcefully. is crying. It’s all very Hitchcock the cool blonde in the dress; the dynamic fellow, a magician by trade, shadowing her a rooftop in New York. Is he trying to kill her?
    No. He’s fucking her.
    Iris had told me over the phone that she was having a little with Aaron. Iris and I have been tight friends since school,
     
    we’ve wondered aloud what it would be like to sleep together, but never really felt the need to find out. I am gay, after all. But then again, so is Aaron.
    At the moment, he has her off-the-shoulder 1950’s dress gathered up in his hands, and he’s using it for balance as he rocks into her, steadily, driving her back, until they brace against an air duct. My first thought is, “How’s he maintaining a hard-on? It’s freezing.” My second thought is, “How’s he maintaining a hard-on? He’s gay.” As for my first question: He’s left his pants on, and though his dick is pulled through the fly of his pants, it’s certainly not waving in the midnight air. As for my second question: Iris has her hands around his neck, she’s kissing all over his face, and she’s so excited she’s crying, and he seems to be equally enthralled, meeting her kisses with wild passion. So I guess he’s not that gay. Still, I find this fascinating, and since they’re completely unaware of me, I continue to watch.
    I’m cold. My ears are hurting already, and my fingers are nearly frozen to the pipe I’m using to steady myself. But I keep watching. I can’t believe that Aaron is giving it to her so cocksure and that Iris is abandoning herself so freely and getting so much pleasure from him. I remember what Amity sounded like when she was being ridden to the finish line by Bart, and I wonder if she’d be so vocal coming down the home stretch with someone like Aaron or me?

I CHAPTER
SIX
    /- Amity and I are just roommates,” I declare, standing in kitchen with my mother. “I know that,” my mother says, mixing curry into mayonnaise a very exotic dip for the Midwest. She’s it herself, because she’s scaled back our family maid, Marzetta, minimal hours on account of Donald, her new husband, who anything worth doing should be done by yourself. I watch her as she stirs. Like Amity’s, they’re too