– From one of my patented rants

There’s been a fashion lately for ‘the boys write slash’ stories. As I ease back into writing, this bit of fluff results.

CROSSOVER DRIVEL

Ian McDuff

Click. Curse. Backspace. Clickety-click.

‘... the fatman xxx fat mna xxx man swore. “It’s like a, rule. Bas^ses hafta be Southerm xxx n, green-eye^d, and relidgeous xxx religious.”’

Justin’s mouth twisted even more as he grinned to himself. Any fool could do this. Damn but that spellcheck was annoying, though. Fuckin’ squiggly red lines under everything.

Click. Tappeta tappeta click click.

‘“Well” said the brunte xxx brounet xxx brown-headed SECOND tenor “just becuz xxx because Bcakstrete xxx Backstreet has Kevin”’ –

‘Good Lord, Justin, what in the Sam Hill are you doing?’

‘Jesus, Lansten, fuck, sneak up and scare the shit outta me why doncha?’

‘Don’t snap at Lance, Curly, your door was cracked open –’

‘Back off, C. Just ’cause you two are shackin’ –’

‘Now just a damn minute –’

‘GOD! Can I NEVER get any damn PRIVACY ’thout bein’ in’errupted an’ SCHOOLED –’

The answer – apparently – was, No. Because – of course – whilst Justin’s attention was on the Bass-Chasezes, Joe and Chris had taken the opportunity to barge in and start reading what Justin had taken extreme measures to keep strictly private.

‘Irv GOLDMAN? You renamed Fat Bastard “Irv Goldman?” Anti-Semitic much, Jupe?’

‘DAMN IT, Fat One, that's PRIVATE!’

‘I can see why,’ said Chris, with his brows raised so high he looked taller than five foot nothing for once. ‘What’s with the comma splice?’

‘This whole manuscript is in a comma-tose condition, actually,’ Joe snickered.

Red-faced and writhing with humiliation, Justin dove for the laptop and the printout of the previous chapters. Joe fielded him neatly and put him in a head- and arm-lock. ‘Don’t thrash, you’ll only hurt yourself.’

‘Good God A’mighty,’ Lance muttered. ‘I do not speak that way.’

‘Least of all in the throes of passion,’ JC grinned. He read over Lance's shoulder. ‘Shit, Justy. I am not an anorexic cross-dresser, man. I thought you were my friend.…’

‘Yeah,’ Joe said, winking. ‘He’s not anorexic.’

‘Thanks, Joe – wait a minute, Woppo, you sayin’ I’m a cross-dresser?’

‘If the pumps fit,’ Chris giggled.

‘James! Did you hear – James?’

Lance, oblivious, had the printed portion of the manuscript spread across the damnably narrow desk that all hotels, even the pricey ones, seem inexplicably to favor, and was vigorously plying the red ink portion of his four-color ballpoint. ‘Sweet Christ,’ he muttered, ‘how the hell is that sentence supposed to parse?’ The others gathered around him, Justin swearing like a sailor, but still effectively pinioned. They ignored the cropped tenor’s ranting.

‘Holy shit,’ Chris squeaked, ‘this is ... man ... I thought that in slash it was dicks and balls that were supposed to dangle, not participles.’

‘And you’d need an orphan asylum for all these motherless, homeless dependent clauses, actually.’

‘FUCK YOU!’

‘And….’ JC took a deep, calming breath. ‘That’s just ... insulting. There’s, like, no character development, okay, I can live with that ... look at that run-on sentence, though –’

‘DAT’S ’CAUSE DAT’S HOW YOU REALLY BE TALKIN’, YOU BABBLING FREAK!’

‘– and he has the “me” character – the cross-dresser, mind you – topping the bass?’

‘But what's really insulting,’ Josh said, pained, ‘is this alleged song I wrote, on page thirty-three. Dude, it has no meter, it doesn't even scan –’

‘YOU RHYME “LOVE” WITH ITSELF! “YOUR EYES ARE RED BECAUSE YOU CRIED” – GIMME A BREAK, ASSWIPE!’

‘Don't worry, Josh, baby ... ’s still more literate than the rest of this crap. “Jason Woodriver look tautenedly –” I think he means “looked tauntingly” – “at the pudgy blond boy” –’

‘Did he just call you pudgy, hon?’

‘I don’t think so, this seems to be the Nicky Carter character.’

‘Oh. Okay. Hey! What the fuck is this syntactically supposed to be, anyway?’

‘Lordy, I don’t know, I’m tryin’ to wade through adjective hell to get to it –’

‘Actually, I think he’s trying to foreshadow something with AJ and Drew Lachey, actually.... But yeah, that sentence, qua sentence, should be shot to put it out of its misery.’

Justin writhed unavailingly, and tried – and failed – to kick Joe in the groin.

‘Whoa whoa whoa wait a minute!’ Chris was dancing a demonic jig as he waved another page in the air. ‘You have me talking in Ebonics and fucking Howie?!?’

‘I GOTS HOWIE FUCKIN’ YOU, WEIRDO! ’CAUSE YOUR CHARACTER’S A SLUT – AND HUNG LIKE A HAMSTER!’

‘You’re secretly writing really bad slash that gets your hidden hostilities out ... and you call Chris a weirdo? Actually –’

Joey never finished whatever he was ‘actually’ going to say. Justin bit him.

As Justin, coming to ground outside his own suite, slammed against the locked door and fell back on the hallway carpet, the marks of Joey’s grip still on him, he screamed into the room: ‘DON’T Y’ALL BE FUCKIN’ UP MY STORY!’

He heard Lance’s bass rumble from within: ‘You did that already – we’re trying to make a story of your fuckups!’

‘DAMN IT!’ Justin was pummeling and kicking the door as the bodyguards in the hallway laughed at him. ‘I CAN TOO WRITE!’

‘Tell you what,’ he heard JC reply, as Lonnie and Dre dragged him away, still kicking and flailing. ‘Stick to song-writing with Wadey-Poo, and your basketball novel! We’ll cover the slash.’

‘“Sweetheart, give me rewrite,”’ Joe quoted, loud enough for Justin to hear.

The door opened then, just as the guards got Justin to the elevator. Chris was grinning evilly. ‘Yeah, face it, Timberlake,’ he called down the hallway, savoring Justin’s growing outrage as he fired the most wounding dart in his arsenal. ‘Justin.... You have no talent for sex.’

– Ian