Cinderella

This was maybe eight years ago. I was a freshman at UCLA. I hadn’t spoken to my cousin Frank in a few months; he called me the night before Halloween to invite me to a party. I accepted for no other reason other than I had nothing better planned. Frank had always treated me like a younger brother, which I didn’t really mind too much because I was an only child. My parents were always busy working, so I spent a lot of time with Frank’s family. I had my first beer at a park with Frank and his friends when I was sixteen. When we were kids, he went by Francis back then, he convinced me that rubbing a guinea pig on my face would help me grow a moustache. I tried, it didn’t work. I still can’t grow a proper one.

I had no idea what to dress as, but Frank insisted everyone at the party would be in costume. There was a Halloween store a few streets down on Westwood Boulevard. Let me tell you, shopping for a costume the afternoon of Halloween is like a scene from one of those zombie movies where everyone is rushing to the market to pick up supplies, only most of the shelves are bare and you can’t find what you need so you settle for what’s left. Lucky for me, I didn’t have a lot of options. I was five-foot two heading into high school. I hit puberty later than most of my friends. I’m five-six now and still hoping for that last growth spurt my mom kept insisting would eventually come. There weren’t many options left in a child’s extra-large or adult small. I considered going as Batman or the Crow but thought the irony of wearing a kid’s superhero costume might be lost in a house full of drunken twenty-somethings. I decided on Robin Hood, not the Kevin Costner version mind you, but that Disney version where everything was bright green and Robin Hood was played by a cartoon fox. They even included a brown felt satchel. I chose not to get the bow and quiver, I didn’t want to have to carry them around the party.

I waited on the corner of Landfair and Gayley Avenue at nine thirty where Frank had told me to wait. There were already people dressed up, walking to parties and bars around Westwood Village. Frank pulled up in his lifted black Ford F-150 just as Sally from A Nightmare Before Christmas and a sexy nurse walked by, clutching each other arms and giggling. Sally even looked back over her shoulder at me as they passed.

“You should have invited those chicks to the party,” said Frank out the window. “Get in the back. This is Mark,” nodding his head towards a Super Mario in the front seat with an oversized fake mustache and puffy red cap. “And James.”

James was dressed as a caveman wearing one of those animal print loin cloths. I got in as he moved his plastic club that was on the seat.

“That’s a bad ass Peter Pan costume,” said Frank.

“I’m actually Robin Hood.”

“No shit,” said Frank, turning his head to grin at Mario.

“Well there wasn’t really anything left at the store when I got there.”

As he drove, the lights from bar signs and storefronts created a silhouette of Frank’s jawline covered in a short beard that looked too well-kept to be fake. He was wearing a red plaid shirt so I figured he was a lumberjack.

“So have you met any girls since you’ve been out here?” asked Caveman in what appeared to be a sincere tone.

“Not really. I’ve been kind of busy with classes and all. Plus, I work nights at Starbucks.”

“What are you gay or something?” asked Frank, which stirred laughs from both Mario and Caveman.

“I’m not a fag; I just haven’t met any girls yet,” I realized it was the first time I had actually said that word out loud.

“You better watch that language. The guy throwing tonight’s party is gay. Him and his friends would probably fuck you up for saying something like that,” Frank smiled at Mario again.

“I just meant…,” I stumbled to finish the sentence. The only gay person I knew was a friend in high school, but we weren’t really close. I mean I didn’t have anything against gays, I just never really knew any.

“Anyways, we’re here,” said Frank. We pulled into a street off of Sunset that sloped slightly downhill. I could see a duplex a few houses down with bright lights and people mingling in the front yard. The two sides shared a front porch with a bench where people sat smoking. The door on the left was wide open. You could see people drinking, talking and laughing in the middle of the living room. There seemed to be music playing from the right side of the building. I couldn’t make the song out until a pirate came out, interrupting the relative silence to unleash a fury of electro-pop into the lawn, to bum a cigarette from a slutty cop sitting on the bench.

It was New Order’s “True Faith”. The strobe lights cascaded the wooden planks of the deck and all the people on it. The white sections of Frank’s plaid shirt started to glow from the black lights as he stepped onto the porch.

I followed Frank and his friends inside the house through the door on the left. Like so often, most of the guys there were much taller and bigger than me. Frank cleared the path to a keg in the middle of the kitchen and poured me a beer. He and his friends chanted “chug”, pumping their fists as I tried my hardest to down a solo cup full of beer darker and stronger than I was used to. They then poured shots of Jameson into skull-shaped shot glasses on the kitchen counter that was acting as a makeshift bar. There were even plates of edibles, brownies and cookies on a silver platter. that were clearly marked special. I ate half of Frank’s cookie, after he hounded me for five minutes.

After an hour so, I needed some air. I had only smoked a handful of times up to that point, but I asked Frank if he could find me a cigarette. I didn’t want to be sitting out on the porch by myself doing nothing. The girl Frank had been chatting up most of the night gave me one. When I got to the porch, it was empty. There was a lighter next to a coffee can full of a sludgy soup of filters. I was about to light my cigarette when the music suddenly got louder, then quieter. I first noticed her clear high heeled shoes and white stockings.

“Hey, do you have another one of those?” She was wearing a pale blue gown. A matching blue ribbon held her blonde hair up in a bun.

“Sorry, I don’t,” I said, wishing I had a full pack in the satchel wrapped around waist.

“Mind if we share?” she asked as she sat next to me.

I told her how I had just started school and how the only person I knew at the party was my cousin Frank. She told me about how she worked at a boutique on Melrose with Jason, the guy who was throwing the party. We exchanged questions and responses in between puffs from the cigarette. She apologized for leaving pink lipstick while handing it to me. It felt slippery and warm every time I inhaled, and I imagined her thin lips on mine every time I exhaled. She told me she knew I was Robin Hood because Peter Pan didn’t wear a vest. After a while the conversation led to what song was playing inside and how I hadn’t been to that part of the house yet.

She led me inside. There were people dressed in slinky costumes dancing in front of a deejay set up in the corner. There was a couch on the other side of the room where two guys dressed in black leather were kissing. Next to them sat Snow White, bobbing her head to the electronica music playing. Cinderella put her hands to my ear and asked me if I wanted to drop. I could feel her warm breath against my ear with every word. I said sure, not really certain what she was talking about. She put a white tablet that glowed purple from the lights to my lips. We danced until our costumes clung to our bodies. An hour and a half felt like five minutes and a whole night at the same time.

We ended up in a bathroom upstairs so I could wash my face. It wasn’t as clean as I thought a gay man’s bathroom would be. The grout between the worn ivory tiles was the color of walnuts. There was a ring stain in the toilet and soap scum hazed the shower doors. Even the mirror was cloudy with residue. I could see my distorted reflection as I lifted my face from the sink basin. I could feel her hand on the small of my back, lightly stroking it as if to say everything would be okay. She pressed her body against mine as I turned around and was already leaning in to kiss me before I had the chance to kiss her. Her tongue slithered past her lips, slowly lapping the tip of mine.

“I’ve never done anything like this before,” I said, not completely sure why I had said it at all. Maybe it was an excuse if I wasn’t doing it right. Maybe I wanted her to take control. “I never thought my first time would be in a bathroom,” I said, but she assured me this kind of stuff usually happened in bathrooms. The back of her hand slowly stroked the front of my brown tights. I pressed myself against her thigh, grinding, when my satchel started to vibrate. I hesitated to stop but thought it might be Frank, it was. I noticed it was almost midnight. He was wondering where I had gone, after searching both sides of the house for me. Cinderella gave me a peck on my neck and whispered: “Find her later.”

Frank and his friends were still around the kitchen where I had left them a few hours earlier.

“Where have you been?” asked Frank while handing me a beer. I gulped half of it down just then realizing how thirsty I had been.

“I met a girl,” I said. I could feel the foam from the beer collecting at the bottom of my huge grin as I formed the words.

“So I heard. When I went next door to look for you, someone told me you were upstairs with Cinderella,” said Frank. His smile was bigger than mine at this point. For a faint moment I thought he was proud of me. “So, how was he?”

“She…” At that second time slowed down to a jerky stop-motion pace. Mario had keeled over with laughter. Caveman was sitting on the couch with a horrid expression on his face, shaking his head. His eyes told me this was no joke. I turned my attention back to Frank, his hand clasped around my shoulder.

“Cinderella’s a dude.”

I finished my beer, hoping this was all just a joke they were playing and Cinderella really was a girl. I found myself back on the porch. I didn’t know which door I should go through. I was sick of the mocking laughs from Frank and his friends, but I was reluctant to find out what was really behind the other door. I just started walking. Not knowing where I was headed. I just let my feet follow each other, back uphill towards Sunset Boulevard. I passed small crowds of costumed freaks stumbling from bar to bar. I passed closed storefront that showed my reflection as I walked aimlessly. I passed a clock tower that read a quarter past midnight and a taxi that was stopped in front of it with is fare light on.

The ride home in the taxi was silent from my end. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to listen. I was emotionally drained, but was still a little amped. My roommates were still up. They were smoking weed with their friends. Only a few of them were in costumes. They sat around our coffee table spaced out watching one of those Freddy Krueger movies. They made room for me on the couch, where I sat for an hour as time just passed around me. I sat not wanting to tell anyone where I had been or what I had done. I became part of the furniture. I never saw Cinderella again.