"You don't have to feel bad for me," Elroy said. "I'll be okay alone. I'm a big boy." He spoke in a soft, dejected tone, hoping to make Kyle feel even guiltier for leaving him all alone.
Kyle hesitated at the door. "Are you sure you're okay?"
Elroy sighed again and looked up at him. He sent him a pathetic glance and said, "I'm fine. Go on. They're all waiting for you."
"You're sure?"
He was hoping Kyle would change his mind about going to the party and stay home with him. The things he would do to Kyle in that dress and those high heels raced through his filthy mind. For Elroy it wasn't about whether or not Kyle could pass as a woman. He couldn't pass, which was more than evident. The sexual attraction was more about how hot Kyle looked as a man in women's clothing. "I'm sure. I'll be okay. I don't want you to feel bad about me. Just go and have fun."
Kyle shrugged and said, "Okay. I'll see you later." Then he opened the door, joined his friends in the hall, and didn't even give Elroy a backward glance.
After he'd gone, Elroy sat there staring at the door for a minute. He thought for certain he'd be able to guilt trip Kyle into missing the party. When he realized he didn't have as much control over Kyle as he thought he'd had, he got out of bed, went to the closet, and changed his clothes. There was no way he'd stay home alone that night, not with Kyle out having the time of his life in a mini-dress and no underwear. Fuck Kyle, fuck Edwin Sutton, and fuck the goddamn party.
* * * * Elroy didn't want to be seen anywhere in Boston that night. If anyone did see him alone in a bar in Boston they would report back to Edwin Sutton and that fat little fucker would enjoy this too much. So he put on tight jeans, a tight black T-shirt, and drove to the Cape instead. He knew Halloween weekend in Provincetown would be filled with good-looking young men from all over the east coast. He figured if he was really lucky, he might even meet a nice gay couple looking for a threeway. He knew plenty of gay couples who went to Provincetown just for threeways. They would all claim they went for the shops, the beaches, the whale-watching, and the restaurants. But they really went there for the dick.
When he pulled onto Commercial Street, he found a parking spot near the post office, a comfortable walking distance from the bars. He reached under the seat and pulled out his trusty old handicapped card and hung it from the rearview mirror. Provincetown had the worst parking anywhere and Elroy hated to walk too far for anything. The best parking spaces were handicapped only, located in the center of town. He'd applied for a handicapped card after breaking his leg in a skiing accident two years earlier. At the time, he'd needed it to get around. After his leg healed he got so used to parking in handicapped spaces he decided to hold on to it for as long as he could. And it wasn't as though Provincetown was filled with crippled people. Most of the time the handicapped spaces were all empty anyway and he hated to see them go to waste.
He went to one bar closer to the East End of town and didn't see anything interesting. He was glad he'd worn his black leather jacket that night. The sea breeze there made it cooler than in Boston. After he left the first bar, he walked down Commercial Street with his hands in his pockets, staring down at the sidewalk. Everyone seemed to be with a group; no one walked alone. Many were wearing outrageous Halloween costumes that had glitter, feathers, and high heels. Most were high camp; some were downright hideous. Those who weren't walking around in groups were couples walking hand in hand. He glanced at one couple kissing outside the drugstore and thought about Kyle at Edwin Sutton's party. Without warning, a feeling of doom passed through his body and he couldn't seem to shake it.
At a bar in the middle of town, on a small side street off Commercial Street, he paid his cover fee and walked to the end of a long bar and ordered a beer. This bar was the oldest one in town; he'd been there before and he knew the dance floor was uneven and lopsided. The music played too loud and people had to shout over each other in order to be heard. When he glanced at the annoying mob on the dance floor jumping up and down, with their arms waving above their empty gay heads, the same feeling of doom he'd experienced earlier grew even more intense. They all seemed to know each other. No one seemed remotely interested in cruising. Elroy had experienced this before, especially in Provincetown, and he started to think he'd made a huge mistake by driving all this way. When single gay men travel in groups they tend to stick together and they don't allow their friends to know they are cruising. Or they are usually too intimidated to cruise other men. And they all wind up going home alone at the end of the night, so they can complain the next day to their best girlfriends about how they didn't get laid. Elroy didn't feel like playing games that night. He didn't want to make new friends or bond with a bunch of queens in bad costumes. He wanted dick.