Second You Sin Read Online Free PDF Page B

my leather jacket and wondered if my sweatshirt was dry enough to wear yet. I decided that even if it was, wearing dried piss wasn’t that much better than wearing it wet.
    It was a ten-minute walk to my place; I strode briskly to stay warm.
    Could Freddy be right? Could Randy’s accident have been . . . not an accident? There were suspicious elements, but the whole thing seemed far-fetched. Freddy loved drama; this was probably a product of his overactive imagination.
    Of course, that’s what my semi-boyfriend said when I told him I thought my friend and patron, Al en Harrington, had been kil ed last summer. Turned out I was right.
    Could Freddy be, too?
    My head was spinning. Had I taken my medication this afternoon? Yeah.

    Tony was my semi-boyfriend due to his total inability to commit to me. Worse, he was unable to commit to being gay. Since we both had dicks, that made being with me a problem for him.
    Tony was my first love. We grew up together on the same street on Long Island, New York.
    I always wanted him.
    Tony was—is—absurdly handsome, with dark Italian skin, darker eyes, and the silky black hair of a pony. His strong cheekbones point the way to plump, kissable lips that any Hol ywood starlet would endure endless Botox injections to have.
    His body, which grew more muscular and defined with each passing year, was always lean, hard, and graceful. When we were kids, I remember being fascinated by the way he walked, bicycled, played stickbal , and wielded a joystick.
    Even his smel was a turn-on for me. I remember once, when I was twelve and he was fifteen, he was kicking a soccer bal around with some friends on a fal day that surprised us al by suddenly turning warmer.
    “Would you hold this for me, Kev?” he asked, tossing me his denim jacket. It was redolent with Tony’s scent—like just-mowed grass with a little musk—and I got a little dizzy inhaling his pheromones. I also got an erection so intense that I immediately understood something about myself that up til then I had just suspected.
    Not that it was huge problem. I had grown up on MTV and around my mother’s beauty shop, both of which were always ful of gay men. Stil , it’s hard to be different, to know that you don’t quite fit in. While the other boys were hanging up posters of Beyoncé, Shakira, and some girl from a Disney musical whose nude photos surfaced online, I had on my wal a signed eight by ten of Barbra Streisand from A Star Is Born.
    OK, maybe it seems weird that my early crush on Tony is inextricably entwined with my love for Barbra.
    Like I grew up on Tony, I also was weaned on La Streisand. Literal y. My mother told me that she’d often play Barbra’s Greatest Hits while nursing.
    (BTW, while that information may have helped me understand my obsession with Babs, I wish my mother kept it to herself. Any reference to the fact that I once suckled at her oversized breasts makes me a little dizzy.)
    My mother was—is—a huge fan of Barbra’s. In her shril , piercing soprano, she constantly sang along to the soundtracks of Hello, Dolly! and Yentl.
    When I sat down and watched my first Barbra movie, Funny Girl, at the impressionable age of eight, I immediately related to her. Barbra often played the smart, wisecracking girl who, despite her charm and offbeat appeal, was never good enough, or sufficiently pretty or, in one way or another, not quite appropriate for her leading man.
    Yet, in the end, through her seductive manner and sheer force of wil , Barbra took those men and she made them love her.
    That’s the power I wanted. I, too, grew up around boys and men I desired and couldn’t have. Straight boys who dazzled me with their easy athleticism, broad shoulders, and confident strength. My seventh grade science teacher, Mr. Smith, with his carrot red hair and the pale blue eyes; Adam, who played soccer and lacrosse and who cut a swath through the neighborhood girls wider than the Lincoln Tunnel; Richard from the debate