Go Straight
The bass throbbed through Liam's veins like a second heartbeat as he gyrated against some random hottie on the dance floor of The Pulsar, West Hollywood's premier gay club.
At twenty-two, Liam was the epitome of twink perfection – slim, hairless, with an ass that could make a straight man question his life choices. His crop top barely contained his lithe frame as he ground against his dance partner, the taste of cheap vodka and cranberry still fresh on his tongue.
"Another round, boys!" Liam squealed, throwing his arms around his drag queen friend Sasha and his gym bunny buddy Marco. His phone buzzed relentlessly in his pocket – Grindr notifications, of course. He was getting hit on by everything from twinks to bears, but one profile made him roll his eyes.
"Ugh, get a load of this loser," Liam cackled, showing his friends the screen. "Thirty-eight, divorced dad, works in accounting. Like, what even is the point if you're not rich? Ew."
Sasha snatched the phone. "Oh honey, you're not actually going to respond, are you? You're wasted."
Liam snatched it back, thumbs flying across the screen. "Dear 'DLDadBod38'," he read aloud as he typed, "thanks for the interest but I'd rather fuck a cactus than some boring old straight loser who probably thinks 'rimming' is something you do to a car. Delete your account, creep." He hit send with a flourish, downing the rest of his drink.
Just then, his ride-share app pinged. "Finally!" Liam slurred, stumbling toward the exit. "My chariot awaits."
A beat-up sedan pulled up, and Liam yanked open the passenger door, practically falling into the seat. The interior smelled of stale coffee and cheap air freshener, a pine scent that did little to mask the underlying odor of old cigarettes.
The vinyl seat was cracked, sticking to his bare back as he slumped against it. The driver, a man whose face seemed to be carved from boredom and disapproval, glanced over, his eyes lingering just a second too long on Liam's glitter-smeared cheek and the delicate silver chain around his neck.
"You Liam?" the driver grunted, his voice flat and devoid of any warmth.
Liam giggled, the sound high and thin in the quiet car. "The one and only! Take me to paradise, good sir!" He flopped back, head spinning as the car pulled away from the curb, the thumping bass of the club fading into the night.
The driver didn't respond, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. He adjusted the rearview mirror, not to check traffic, but to stare directly at Liam. "Looks like you had quite the night. Shame you couldn't find someone to take home. You're quite the man."
The driver's voice was a flat line, devoid of inflection, a statement of fact from a man who looked like he'd been carved from a block of particularly boring granite. In the sticky, vinyl-scented confines of the beat-up sedan,
Liam let out a high, tinkling laugh that ended in a breathy hiccup. "Honey," he slurred, waving a dismissive hand that was suddenly too heavy, "I'm about as manly as a butterfly in drag. A very, very sparkly drag."
He flopped back against the cracked seat, the cheap material clinging to the sweat on his bare back like a second skin. The driver, whose name was probably something like Dave or Gary, didn't even crack a smile. His face, illuminated by the sickly, jaundiced glow of the dashboard, was a mask of stoic disapproval, the kind of face that belonged to a man who thought fun was a liberal conspiracy and that spices were the work of the devil.
The car pulled away from the curb with a shuddering lurch, the thumping bass of The Pulsar fading into the night like a dying dream. Then, the GPS, a cheap aftermarket unit wedged precariously on the dash, chirped to life with a robotic, feminine voice that was somehow devoid of any actual femininity. "GO STRAIGHT."
A strange, unpleasant warmth bloomed in Liam's gut, a pins-and-needles sensation that started in his fingertips and toes and rapidly worked its way inward, like his very cells were being filled with wet, lumpy concrete. He shifted in his seat, suddenly, profoundly uncomfortable.
His skinny jeans, usually a second skin, felt tight, restrictive, the denim groaning as the muscles beneath began to swell, thickening from lean and toned to sturdy and average, the kind of legs made for standing, not for dancing. His shoulders broadened with an audible creak of bone and sinew, the delicate clavicle disappearing as his frame became a solid, unremarkable rectangle. He felt a strange pulling sensation in his groin as his hips narrowed, losing their gentle, inviting curve, becoming as straight and uninteresting as a ruler.
"GO STRAIGHT," the GPS announced again, its voice sharper this time, more insistent, like a schoolmarm cracking a ruler across a knuckle.
Liam tried to fight it, to hold onto the memory of Kyle, the bartender with the intricate sleeve tattoo and the surprisingly gentle hands. He pictured Kyle's face, the way he smiled when Liam made a particularly catty joke, but the image began to warp and melt, the sharp lines of the tattoo blurring into the cheap polyester of a youth pastor's short-sleeved button-up.
The memory of a passionate kiss behind the bar, the taste of gin and lime on Kyle's tongue, dissolved into a memory of a clumsy, fumbling first kiss with a girl named Jessica behind the high school gym, her braces scraping against his lips, the whole experience awkward and vaguely disappointing. He tried to scream, to fight the invading thoughts, but all that came out was a low, guttural groan, a sound that was alien to his own ears.
"Mind if I put on some music?" the driver asked, already reaching for the dial. His hand was thick and calloused, the nails clipped short and clean, the knuckles dusted with coarse, dark hair.
"Uh, sure," Liam slurred, his tongue feeling thick and clumsy in his mouth, like it was no longer quite his own, like it was being slowly replaced by a lump of gristle.
The car filled with the sound of Christian rock, a generic, upbeat tune about Jesus's love that should have made Liam physically ill. Instead, he found his head bobbing along, the lyrics about redemption and righteousness striking a chord deep within him, a chord that had never been there before.
Memories of theater camp and late nights with his drag queen friend Sasha, of the thrill of performing, the roar of the crowd, the shared, secret language of the outcasts, faded like old photographs left in the sun.
They were replaced by memories of Sunday school, of youth group retreats where they'd learned about the "dangers" of premarital sex and the "evils" of homosexuality, of the day he'd been "saved" at the age of twelve, weeping openly at the front of a megachurch as the pastor laid hands on him, the touch electric, the feeling of being cleansed, of being made right. He found himself humming along, then singing softly, his voice dropping an octave, becoming a low, tuneless drone that was somehow in perfect harmony with the soulless music on the radio.
As the song ended, a news report came on, the announcer's voice crisp and authoritative as he discussed the stock market. Numbers that previously meant nothing to Liam – the Dow Jones, the NASDAQ, futures and options – suddenly made perfect sense. He saw charts and graphs in his mind's eye, understood the ebb and flow of the market, the cold, hard logic of it all.
He was... in real estate? No, that wasn't right. But then it hit him – the boring game, the fake smile he wore all day, selling homes to happy families when he didn't have one of his own. The thought should have been depressing, but instead, it felt... right. Proper. The way things were supposed to be.
He remembered the satisfaction of a good deal, the pride of a hefty commission, the joy of telling his wife about the bonus he'd gotten for selling a house to a nice, "normal" family, a family just like theirs.
"GO STRAIGHT," the GPS chirped, a third time, its voice now seeming to come from inside his own head, a constant, nagging refrain.
"Ya know pal," the driver said, his eyes still fixed on the road ahead, "the older you get, the less you can handle the drinking."
This sent a jolt of panic through Liam's rapidly changing consciousness. He was twenty-fucking-two, he could party till dawn if he wanted, he could outdrink anyone at the bar. But his mind shifted, the memories rewriting themselves with dizzying speed.
Yeah, he used to drink like that in college with his frat bros, but that was years ago. No... no, he was still in college, wasn't he? He looked at his reflection in the window, and a stranger stared back. His face was older, lined with faint wrinkles around the eyes and mouth, the skin pale and slightly doughy.
His stomach pushed out slightly, a comfortable, soft paunch that spilled over the waistband of his skinny jeans. He was twenty-nine... no, thirty-five...
College was decades ago, a distant, hazy memory of beer pong and frat parties, but he still got together with his old frat bros on weekends for poker and barbecues, talking about their jobs, their wives, their kids, their lawns. The most boring life imaginable, and it was his.
"GO STRAIGHT," the GPS commanded again, its voice a cold, metallic shriek that echoed in the suddenly vast emptiness of his mind.
"Thanks for picking me up, man," Liam found himself saying, his voice deeper now, a gravelly baritone that vibrated in his chest. "Don't know what I'd do without you. So glad I moved in next to you and Faith."
The words came without thought, but memories flooded his mind, so vivid and real they eclipsed everything else. This was his best friend, Chuck. He'd sold them their home, a beige McMansion in a cookie-cutter suburb, and his own wife, Grace, had been so jealous she'd demanded they move in next door.
His face was square and unremarkable, his expression somewhere between neutral and mildly serious, the kind of face that rarely betrayed excitement or intensity. thirty-seven...No, forty-two... forty-five.
Grace? Who the fu— hel— heck was Grace? Why couldn't he swear anymore? Jeepers! Of course he remembered Grace, his wife of five years. He remembered their first date, a blind date set up by his church group, where he'd talked about his job and Jesus until her eyes glazed over. He remembered their wedding, a stuffy, traditional affair, and their honeymoon, a week in a cabin in the mountains where they'd read the Bible and gone to bed by nine every night.
He tried to fight it, to remember being Liam the twink, the vibrant, funny, carefree boy he'd been just an hour ago, but "GO STRAIGHT" echoed from the GPS again, a final, damning command. A political ad for the Republican governor blared from the radio, the candidate's voice a familiar, comforting drone about family values and fiscal responsibility.
Suddenly, memories of voting Republican, of cheering at Trump rallies, of complaining about taxes and welfare queens and the "gay agenda" corrupting America's youth filled his mind. He remembered being disgusted by two men holding hands in public, telling his wife they needed to protect their children from such perversions.
He remembered the pride he'd felt when his son, Timmy, had beaten up a "sissy" at school, the stern lecture he'd given him afterwards not about violence, but about making sure there were no witnesses next time.
"Well, here we are... Robert," the driver said, pulling into a perfectly manicured driveway.
Liam was gone. All that remained was Robert, a 45-year-old suburban husband and father, the most boring, generic straight white Republican in existence. Nothing about him was interesting or memorable – he was completely, utterly average in every way, a walking, talking stereotype of conservative white mediocrity.
"Hopefully Grace is still up," said his neighbor and best friend and tonight's DD, Chuck, the words feeling as natural and necessary as breathing. "Our little girl Becky could use a husband one day."
Robert grunted in agreement, a sound of pure, unadulterated masculine approval. Robert didn't notice that Chuck was more handsome than him, his jaw sharper, his hair still thick and dark.
Why would he care what another man looked like? He grabbed his own crotch, a crude, possessive gesture that felt both new and deeply ingrained. "Oh yeah! Going to take her with all I got." The old Liam, the ghost of a memory already fading, had an average dick and was a total bottom, but Robert didn't know what a bottom was anymore.
The very concept was as foreign to him as quantum physics. He felt his cock swelling, a surge of blood and power that was both terrifying and exhilarating. 5... 7... 8... 9... 11 inches of pure, throbbing, uncut manhood. A wave of horniness, raw and primal, hit him like a physical blow, a biological imperative to claim, to conquer, to breed. He needed to fuck his wife NOW.
He stumbled out of the car and up the perfectly manicured walkway to the front door of his beige McMansion, fumbling with his keys, his hands clumsy and eager. The door swung open into a foyer that smelled of potpourri and bleach, a smell that was both comforting and suffocating. He took the stairs two at a time, his new, heavier body thundering on the carpeted steps.
"Are you drunk again?" Grace asked sleepily as he burst into the master bedroom, her voice a familiar, weary refrain. She was a shadow in the dark, a lump under the floral comforter, her hair a mess on the pillow.
Robert just grinned, a predator's grin, and pounced on her, his weight pinning her to the mattress. She wanted to say no, to tell him she hated drunk sex, that it was rough, impersonal, that it made her feel like a piece of meat, but she knew it was useless. They both knew that when he was drunk, he was an animal, and it was the greatest sex Grace ever had. It was raw, and perfect, and it was the only time she felt truly alive.
He ripped her nightgown, the thin fabric tearing like paper, and entered her in one brutal thrust. "Oh, fuck!" she cried out, her voice a mixture of pain and pleasure. "Yes, Robert, fuck me!"
Thrust. The memory of his first real estate deal solidified in his mind, the commission check, the pride of selling a starter home to a young, straight couple just like them. He was a provider. A man.
Thrust. The memory of their wedding day, Grace in her white dress, pure and virginal, the look in her father's eyes as he gave her away. He was a husband. A protector.
Thrust. The memory of his son's birth, the tiny, wrinkled face, the overwhelming sense of responsibility. He was a father. A patriarch.
Thrust. The memory of his first vote, for the Republican candidate for city council, the feeling of being part of something bigger, something important. He was a citizen. A patriot.
Thrust. The memory of joining the country club, the handshake, the acceptance, the feeling of belonging, of being one of them. He was a member. A pillar of the community.
Thrust. The memory of buying the minivan, the sensible, reliable, utterly boring minivan. He was a dad. A chauffeur.
Thrust. The memory of his daughter's first communion, her in her white dress, the pride he felt, the knowledge that he was raising her right. He was a Christian. A man of God.
Thrust. The memory of his promotion, the corner office, the raise, the respect of his colleagues. He was a success. A winner.
Thrust. The memory of his son's first hunting trip, the thrill of the kill, the bonding, the passing on of tradition. He was a man. A real man.
"OH, GOD, ROBERT, YES!" Grace screamed, her body arching off the bed, her nails digging into his back. "FUCK ME HARDER! YOU'RE SO BIG! YOU'RE SO MUCH OF A MAN!"
Her words, the words of a slut, a whore, his wife, were the final piece of the puzzle. The last vestige of Liam, the twink, the artist, the free spirit, was shattered, pulverized, and replaced by the unshakeable, unassailable reality of Robert, the husband, the father, the provider, the Republican, the man.
"GONNA PUT A BABY IN YOU TONIGHT," he grunted, his voice a raw, animalistic growl. "GONNA GIVE YOU ANOTHER ONE. GONNA FILL YOU UP."
He pounded into her, his body a piston of pure, unadulterated masculinity, his mind a blank slate of pure, unthinking pleasure. He was no longer thinking, no longer remembering, no longer fighting. He was just... being. Being Robert. Being a man. Being the most boring, generic, straight white Republican in the suburbs.
And as they both came, in a shattering, explosive climax that seemed to last for an eternity, he passed out, stuck forever in a life he would have found utterly horrifying just an hour ago, a life that was now his, and his alone. A life of barbecues and church picnics, of PTA meetings and golf outings, of sensible shoes and khaki pants, of a love that was quiet, and a life that was dull, and a soul that was, at long last, perfectly, horribly, straight.