Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2006 19:05:23 -0800 (PST) From: Stephen Aramburu Subject: Wish Upon A Star This is a story about love between two boys. If this material offends you, then leave now. This story actually has a plot and isn't porno. If you look past the fact that it's a gay-themed story, you might actually find it touching. Any comments, submit them to aramflag@yahoo.com It was a quaint mansion...big, but quaint, that stood in the center of a green, flower-covered plain that seemed to stretch on forever into the Nebraska horizon. It was an old mansion, yet showed no signs of decay, for it had been torn down, rebuilt, and remodeled again and again and again. There were pure white with tree-trunk-like, marble columns in the front porch and the typical chandelier, spiral staircase, and eye-popping, plush carpet that greeted the visitor as soon as they entered through the typical, ivory double-door that stood in the entrance. The house looked quaint and compact from the outside, but once inside, the visitor would find himself trapped within a labyrinth of identical hallways marked with row after row of monotonously similar wooden doors. Once you reached the end of a hallway and turned the corner...hallelujah! Oh wait. You were in another one...that looked exactly the same. How many rooms did this fucking house have? Nobody was sure...not even the owner. Joe's bedroom glittered with the wealth of his parents' family fortune. As if his pearl-encrusted, plush bed and his mountain of gaming systems weren't enough to prove that statement, just take a look at his window...his diamond-encrusted window that looked out into the horizon and the 100% fur drapes that embraced those windows. So Joe Carter is the epitome of spoiled rich kid, right? The ultimate brat? The snobbish, hassle-free bitch that everybody hated and despised? No way... Joe's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Carter, were internationally renowned business tycoons who started out as partners (and a little bit more) in a small business they created together, before their business blossomed into a huge, international monopoly. Having gone from rags to riches within a matter of two, short, decades, Joe's parents constantly pressured him to someday maintain their family business and to not only keep, but expand upon their already never-ending family fortunes. Joe went to prep school and studied for six hours everyday, under his parents' suffocating orders. He lived in a very contained, dungeon-like environment...his parents didn't allow him to have a life or to be happy. (The gaming systems were just there because Joe wanted them for Christmas...not that he was allowed to play them.) Joe's parents didn't love him. Joe was, after all, their slave...their worthless pawn whose only purpose in life was to maintain his parents' highly lucrative business after his parents' time had passed. Joe sluggishly crawled into his room...as exhausted as an empty gas meter. He'd just received a two-hour lesson from his parents about the industry of the United States and the world of business...something that would help the company prosper when Joe was to take over as head. Even Joe's scarlet, blood-shot eyes and his pale, sleepless face couldn't represent how tired he was. "Wow...I feel like shit..." he thought. "It's like I've just gone through the Holocaust..." Close enough...His parents had just sat him in a room and lectured him about the great importance of money and material wealth and made him take notes...they wouldn't feed him or hydrate him until the lecture was over. They didn't beat him if he was ever not obedient, however...that was the bodyguard's job. Joe hated life. He hated his huge, gaudy house. He resented his parents, his parents' company, money and everything money represented. Joe had been convinced, until very recently, that he was not meant to have any feeling toward anything except hatred...rage...fury...pain. Joe walked up to the mirror and looked at himself...relieved to find that he looked nothing of the corpse that he felt like. At sixteen years old, Joe Carter was very debonair and very suave...a result of his parents' good genes. He had his dad's bright, blonde hair and a flawless face. His arms and legs were well-muscled, despite never having the time to work out, and his body was like that of any Hollywood hunk. Joe writhingly placed one hand onto his back and felt the bruises... that bodyguard really does know how to beat the shit out of somebody, the way he should be, considering the fact that he was the former world champion sumo wrestler. The memory behind the bruise was almost as painful as the bruise itself...yet, was what finally convinced Joe that life had a purpose. Joe was seated within his study room, as usual, studying the finest, most precise details of the structure of the U.S. economy and its involvement in the life of ordinary civilians...something he still didn't understand, despite having read the textbook over and over and over again for the past two years. Suddenly...a bright light pierced out through the dark, stormy clouds and blinded Joe. As Joe investigated the light, strange things began happening. The raindrops...they solidified and glowed with a beautiful, milky white hue and the sun pierced through the dark clouds. There, on the clouds, an angel...the most impeccable, unblemished being that Joe had ever seen...stood emphatically, glittering with the glow that surrounded him. Joe couldn't keep his eyes off the beautiful angel...it was a boy-angel...and to Joe...the epitome of beauty. It wasn't big...looked to be around the size of a 12-year-old human. Joe began feeling strange feelings...unknown urges that floored his soul. His stomach tied itself into knots and his knees grew weak. Joe reached up toward the light. He wanted to go up onto the clouds and touch the angel...feel the angel...kiss the angel...make love to the angel... Suddenly, Joe felt a sharp pain penetrating through his back...as if a needle the size of a television set had been stabbed right through Joe's spine. Joe cried out in pain as he shot right up onto his desk. It was then that he felt the fist extending from an enormous chunk of fat standing directly behind him sink into him...it was the bodyguard...the exact opposite of the angel that had Joe so mystified a few moments ago. "No slacking!" the bodyguard yelled. "Go back to work!" Joe never forgot that angel. Even though it was just a dream...or perhaps a vision...it made a lasting impression on Joe's mind. Joe had fallen in love with the angel. He didn't think of himself as gay...but the angel...he was sure that anybody who had seen what he saw that day, boy or girl, would've fallen in love. Joe would spend all his free time drawing sketches of that angel. He was an excellent artist and made countless sketches and paintings of the holy being, but none, Joe knew, could recreate the sheer flawlessness that the angel possessed. Joe would flip through his portfolio several times a day. He would often fantasize about being with the angel...about holding the angel in his arms and burying the angel's face with kisses and feeling the angel's smooth, velvety skin. A part of Joe constantly laughed at and taunted himself. "Pathetic!" it would say. "You're such an asshole! Obsessed over a dream...about a boy, no less! You're such a pussy! Get a life!" But at the same time, something else told Joe that the angel was more than just a dream...it had been his only source of comfort for the past six months...and the only source of comfort he'd ever felt throughout the sixteen long, torturous years of his life. It had given him hope that he would be rescued from the living hell that he was suffering right now. Joe turned out the lights, stripped out of his clothes, and climbed into his bed. He looked out into the sky...it was a starry night...the stars and the galaxies shining together into a tapestry of beauty. Joe saw comets...shooting stars grazing across the blue, night sky. Grandma had once told him that if you made a wish under such a star, if the star makes it across the galaxy...then the wish would come true. Joe didn't believe in such delusions...but he was willing to try it out. The angel and the thoughts of the angel had been the difference between Joe and an emotionless, lifeless corpse...devoid of happiness and hope. Joe picked a star in particular...it stood out among all the shooting stars as the brightest and the most reliable...and its tail was long and thick. He gazed at the star and closed his eyes. "I wish...I wish my angel...would come to me," he whispered. At that moment, Joe's eyes shut and he fell into a deep sleep. And the star that Joe had wished upon...made its way across the galaxy at that exact moment. Well...that's it. Next chapter, Joe meets his angel. Any comments, good or bad, please e-mail them to aramflag@yahoo.com