Boot Visits the Frat with Chris

[tortolis]

Here we go again, the frat episode told from the opposite (Boot's) point of view.

- tortolis


Boot and Chris Visit a Frat - part 2b

I’ve been wondering if my stake in Chris’ future might not be an unhealthy obsession. He’s on my mind all the time. And while there’s nothing unusual about that, I guess — I’m always that way about a new venture — the emotions are something else again. For example, Monday morning after Chris’ first night at the bar, Abe Margolis shows up at the pizza shop saying the customers don’t know what to make of Chris, that he’s stony and frightens them. Hello? A bouncer who frightens customers? This is a bad thing?

From the way he was carping, I knew something else was on his mind. I told him I’d take care of it, and calmed him down. But inwardly, I was seething. Here’s the reality check: First, Abe sees Chris’ Olympian body and experiences head-to-toe infatuation with his cut-ness and his bigness, and he’s all smiles and acquiescence; and then he’s all complaints because Chris isn’t giving him what he wants most. Get in line, buster, I was there first. I wanted to kill him on the spot.

But I didn’t have long to seethe, because no sooner does Abe leave than a fraternity boy walks in and wants Boot’s Pizza to cater his house’s first mixer of the semester. The guy, Brian, was clearly a jock, but then it turns out his frat is a big deal gay frat with a national franchise, and I’m thinking that somehow, some way, with Chris as bait there’s got to be a great deal in this.

Now, normally, I’m all business when I’m simmering a deal. But these days, it’s like I’ve got terminal Chris-on-the-brain. So instead of following the scent of money, I’m imagining what it would be like to actually BE Chris and show up at the Lambda Phi house. First, they would choke on their beer. Then they would surround him, grope his rock-hard hugeness, and beg to be his slaves for life. And instead of finding the profit in this fantasy, I’m imagining it’s me: my hugeness. My hardness. My incredible, off-the-chart strength.

That’s how it came to me: arm-wrestling. I imagined it was me walking in and taking on the house’s three strongest guys and overpowering them effortlessly. With a smile, with nonchalance, with my biceps bursting from my sleeves. Like bending that imaginary steel bar that wasn’t in the corner of our living room that afternoon we met. Thinking about it made me hard. That’s what I wanted from Chris that I couldn’t have: to be walking around inside his incredible body.

It was easy to frame a wager with Brian as a business proposition to make Boot’s Pizza the sole source of supply if Chris could win at arm-wrestling for me. A good deal on the face of it. And I strongly implied that it would be worthwhile for other reasons if Chris were to visit Lambda house. But really, I just wanted to go along and watch Chris act out the video track that was playing in my head.

I convinced him to do it, too. Not just to go, but what to wear: a tank top and cargo shorts, “to show that you’re Hercules but you don’t care.” Strategy, I said.

You should have seen it. Trying to think of words Chris’ insane musculature, I find myself thinking of the Zen master artists who dip their finger in the inkpot to draw. Sometimes they make just a flicking motion to create straight lines and flat surfaces. But sometimes they make sweeping curves, with motion from the elbow or shoulder. Now you put Chris next to another athlete, and they’re both built; but he’s all sweeping curves, and the other guy is all straight and narrow. Different kind of subject for the artist.

Which is exactly how it was when we arrived at Lambda house. Chris’ arms were fully exposed, all sweep and mass and incredible size, and not a flat surface on them. Curves and swells, curves and swells. And Brian, who’s an athletic kid, was pretty much on the verge of losing it, all the while trying to make jokes and be the good host. When he’s in a pizza shop standing next to me, Brian is impressively built; next to Chris, he looked like a little boy.

The reality version of the contest was way better than my fantasy. There wasn’t groping, swooning or tears of envy, like I imagined. But with Chris’ tank top clinging to the swells of his chest, and with his arms roaring like lions while he just stood there quietly, nobody really knew what to say or do. They just pretended it was nothing special and tried to speak.

And it got better. First, Chris sits down facing Brian and the two backups, Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee. Then he puts up his arm to clasp hands with Brian, his bicep bulging hugely; and then, on my signal, it bulges even bigger.

But that’s not the half of it, because clearly, Chris isn’t even trying. He’s toying with these three jocks like they’re gnats! So at a certain point he says, like, “that’s enough of that,” and he starts pushing in earnest to close out the match.

Now all eyes are glued on his incredible upper arm. But at that moment, when he really starts to push, it seems to explode to twice the size. Everyone is quiet, trying to pretend they’re not staggered. Except for me. I’m imagining it’s me sitting in Chris’ chair, casually annihilating three guys with one hand.

I was trying to remember when was the last time I had such all-consuming feelings about a person. It was when I first fell in love, in junior high school. Seven years ago, more than a third of my lifetime. But I’m not in love with Chris, I’m in love with the idea of Chris.

And I can own anything else that I want, but not him. So, like I said: maybe an unhealthy obsession.

[nj.]

I love how you describe the same from the point of view of two almost diametrically opposed people. It's easy for me to dislike Boot, and yet he's not totally alien.

Very nice, so far.

[Lucas88]

Yeah..."unhealthy obsession." The only thing tweaking Boot's nerve is that he really has found something he can't buy...BEING Chris! But what might "never-take-no-for-an-answer-Boot" do about it???

These episodes are a lot of fun!

Lucas

[tallguy417]

Great characters! I love em both.