Chapter 1

It's the year 2084.

My world is a little different from yours.

“Make it jiggle a little bit,” he tells me, “Yeah. Just like that. Open your ass cheeks a little. Let me see the whole. Play with it a little bit.”

I bent over exposing my ass crack to Roman. I wasn't the best at being sexy. A lot of the girls around had little crushes on me but it wasn't because of anything I did necessarily. Me trying to be sexy for Roman wasn't exactly working.

“Like this?” I ask him.

“Yeah. Like that.”

Roman leans back in his chair. He had his dick in his hands and it slowly playing with it stroking his cock. Roman is handsome in his own way. He is tall and thin. He has a flat stomach with no six pack or anything like that. His hair is tied down with a ponytail at the back of his head. He's naked in the chair. His body is strapped to a contraption. The plugs line up in the back of his head to his body's hormone outlet.

“How do you feel?”

“I think it's working. Go...read it. What does it say? Where am I?”

I go over to the machine. The machine has notches that line from 0 to 6. The notch hovers right below a 2. I look over at Roman. He's sexy in his own way. His dark eyes close and open as though straining to bring the measurement higher.

“Nawl bruh. You ain't even make it at a 2. I guess that's what... incidental homosexual behavior. I guess it's a little higher than it was last time man.”

“Man fuck that shit. That shit broken yo,” he replies slapping over the lube that is on the table and letting his dick flop out of his hand, “I know I'm getting more gay than that. I been watching gay porn. That hardcore shit too. I'm talking raw dog, rusty trombone...”

“The fuck is a rusty trombone...”

“Why don't you come over here and find out?” he asks me.

He raises an eyebrow sexually looking at me.

I can only help but laugh at how hard my friend is trying, “According to this machine you want to show someone named Marcie what a rusty tombone is...not a dude named Marxis.”

“Thanks Marxis you're a real help.”

I could see the disappointed look in his eyes. I want to comfort him. There is no way that he would get to a 3.5 before trying to pass 'the Scale'. He might as well not even show up. He'd have to wait 6 more years for another shot at it. I can see Roman's eyes water up. We'd been at it all day. All day I'd been shaking my ass, fingering myself, playing with myself in order to turn Roman on. None of that worked.

I was going to say something but we were interrupted.

Footsteps.

“Fuck...” I hear Roman say.

We both had an idea of who it was. Roman struggled to pull detach his hormone tester from the back of his neck. He didn't get far though. Before long Silk walked into the apartment. Silk was our roommate and our best friend. Silk's face said it all when he walked in seeing both of us naked and Roman attached to a tester.

Silk's face said it all, “What's going on here?”

Roman and I looked down. We knew what he was going to think of us. We were practicing to pass the test and Silk was so against that. Silk's was better looking in my opinion than Roman. We were all covered in dirt and grime but somehow Silk managed to look good while at it. He had matted hair that he tied into a ponytail. He never wore a shirt during the summer and he didn't have one on now. His jeans had holes in them. All of our jeans had holes though. That was just how it was.

As attractive as Silk was he always had this long face. He was always so serious though. He acted like he was twice our age even though we all grew up in the same orphanage.

“You know what's going on,” Roman tells him, “I qualify to take the test tomorrow. I wanted to see if I'd be able to score high enough on the Scale.”

“You want to go join those fags?”

Roman gave Silk a look at that moment. He got up from the chair. I could tell Roman was already emotional. Silk was too hard on him. These two butt heads all the time though and I always got stuck in the middle. Maybe that's why I decided to lean back against the wall and ignore everyone. I didn't want anything to do with this argument.

Roman had walked over and slapped a bag that was in Silk's hands out of it. Rodent's fell out of it. They bled. They're blood stained the carpet. There were a lot of other stains on the carpet though. It was a really run down apartment. We'd found it abandoned a few months back and just became boarders. Cleaning wasn't a luxury that we really cared about at this time.

“Those fags...that you like to call them are living the good life. Maybe I just didn't want to eat rats for dinner anymore.”

“Don't give in. Don't give into the gay agenda,” Silk replies.

I know this is kind of a lot to take in. You see, my world is a little different from yours. The gay agenda that Silk mentioned, you've probably heard about it in your time. Back in the day it was a joke. It was this conspiracy. Little did they know the conspiracy was real.

By 2020, homosexuals took over the world. How? I wasn't really sure. Those years were taken out of all the history books for one reason or another.

I guess it didn't matter to me. I never really thought about it. According to Silk, it was an organization called the Gay Agenda.

“Don't trust the Gays, never trust the Gays,” Silk had warned me so many times, “They aren't like us.”

I knew why Silk was so mad. Straight people lived in squalor. We lived in a place only referred to now as the “breeding grounds” It was the ghetto. The slums. Back in the day I knew this area was called Brooklyn. I studied history a lot trying to find clues on how we got to this place. Everyday was a search for food and water. The world was a great depression and slum dogs ran it all. So yeah...Silk had resentment. A lot of straight people did.

What happened to the gay people? Good question.

They moved themselves up. High above the skies...

“It's probably not as beautiful as you think it is,” Silk states.

He walked out at that moment. He had so me meat in his hands and he handed it to me. I looked at the meat and shook my head. I knew this was probably Silk's way of making up for going off earlier on. I had no doubt he would probably offer Roman some of his meat too.

I shook my head and rejected it. The stuff was hard, chewy and barely edible. Sometimes I prefered to stay hungry than to eat it. Right now was one of those times.

I crossed my arms looking up, “How would you know? It looks beautiful.”

We were looking up towards the sky. Above us were was New Jersusalem. The new capital of the United States. It was a floating city in the distance. That's what happened to the Gays. That's where they lived. They separated themselves from the rest of us. Rumor had it that the Gays ate real food up there. They lived well. The only way to get up there were these flying hovercrafts but only the Gays owned them and no one got close to New Jersusalem without first passing the Scale.

“Your last test was 6 years ago. Are you going to retake it too?”

“I can't...you know that,” I tell Silk.

Silk looks over at me. He moved his hand over me. The way he did it sometimes I could have sworn I was attracted to him. There was something about him that always turned me on. His masculine scent. His protective nature. He was strong and powerful. I was so sure I was attracted to him. All my life I had thought I was attracted to men. I was so sure that I was gay.

Silk holds me close as he laughs a little bit, “Oh right. Your test came back inconclusive. How the hell does that even happen. I thought everyone had a sexuality.”

I shook my head. I had been disqualified from taking the test ever again and banished to the breeding grounds with the rest of the straight people. I was supposed to spend the rest of my life living in this Petri dish helping the next wave of Gays.

“I broke the test...twice.”

“Jesus. So does that mean what...bisexuality?”

“No bisexuality is a 3 on the scale. They get to go to New Jersualem. I broke the scale. So I'm...asexual. Nothing.”

He laughs so hard that he bends over.

“That funny to you?” I ask raising my head.

Silk runs his fingers through my hair. It feels good. There is a wildness about his look. He is like a concrete Tarzan and it turns me on. How could I not be gay? How could I not have passed that test? My life would have been so different now.

“We have each other,” Silk replies, “One day things will change. Straight people outnumber the Gays. They can't oppress us forever. The Gay Agenda will go down one day. I promise you that. Until then...”

He leans over the dish to me.

“I'll pass.”

The next day Silk's girlfriend comes over. She smiles at me. She's pretty enough even though she smells like old crude oil and she wears the same thing everyday. Who am I to judge? I literally have to sit in the room as I hear them fucking. Over and over. I have no doubt he's trying to get her pregnant. He hasn't had a child yet but his girlfriend is on her fifth. She's only 25. If she's lucky one of them might turn up being gay and get a better life than she had.

Roman walks in a few hours later. Silk and his girlfriend are still going at it. That's what they do. They go at it. Over and over all day. When you live in a ghetto called “The breeding ground” there isn't much else you can really do but go at it all day.

“How'd it go?” I ask my friend.

I am living through him, even though I don't admit it. He still has hope of passing the test. He's moved up slightly. There is no hope for me. I have been disqualified for a lifetime.

Today's not the day though. I can tell on Roman's face. I have no doubt that he fails the test. He sits on the couch. The couch makes a slick noise.

“One day I'll make it...” he replied, “I'll make it for you. And I'll whoop his ass...”

I knew exactly who Roman was talking about. He was talking about my father. My father who had waited until my mother died and then somehow passed the scale. He had gotten a 5...a pretty high goddam score and had left me. Roman and Silk were the only ones I had left once he left me. Silk never took the test. He avoided the scales like a plague. Roman said he wanted to pass the test just to tell my father what he thought of him. Truth was I knew that wasn't the case. Roman wanted to go live a better life. It didn't matter though. I wanted him to pass either way.

Today's not the day.

At least not in the way I was hoping...

I go hunt for food later that day. I would say it would be nice to take in the air but honestly the air is polluted. I have no doubt that is why the Gays live above the breeding grounds. They are just trying to keep away from the pollution. I just wondered what kind of technology kept New Jersualem floating over the rest of the world like that. There were many slums across the United States but there was only one Jersualem and it cast an enormous shadow over us at times leaving us in darkness even in the daytime.

As I walk through the streets I notice people aren't moving as much. I wanted to say I had gotten used to the smells in the Breeding grounds but even after 25 years of life I never got used to them. They never made sense. New scents came about all the time. New and terrifying scents.

“What the hell is going on? Why isn't anyone moving?”

Usually by now I would have made my way to the sewers. Believe it or not that was where a lot of people went to find the foods. Mystery meat was being sold on the streets as well as some low quality meats but few had money to buy them unless they had a Gay in their family that would send them funds from New Jersusalem.

“The election is coming up,” a girl says to me.

She gives me that look. I know that goddamn look. Attraction. I wondered if would have been easier to live in a place like the Breeding grounds if I at least had the distraction of sex. I didn't though. I didn't find females attractive. I found males attractive. Only males.

“What's that got to with us?”

“I'm not sure. The cyborgs. They come down, you know? The goddamn sentinals too. They bother us. Fuck with us. What's your name by the way. You got a girlfriend?”

I walk away just in time ignoring her question. I figure it's easier than just turning girls down all the time. As I walk I notice she's right. The streets are littered with them. Cyborgs. Half human and half machine. Most humans now-a-days have some machine in them. It's how we get our hormone levels. Cyborgs are straight people who are so sick of the breeding grounds that they give over half of their body to become living weapons for the Gays. They look like humans for the most part but some have mechanical parts. Metal legs. Metal arms. The Gays never come down to the breeding grounds but they send their cyborgs down all the time.

I wondered what they were looking for. The presidential campaign was going to start soon and it always seemed to bring more of the Cyborg militia down. I guess maybe they just to make sure peace was kept. The breeding grounds got crazy during political times.

The streets got loud.

The same old familiar begging once the Cyborgs ran through the streets.

They parade down the streets pushing their way through the crowd. Metal arms separate the crowd. I wait patiently more annoyed than anything.

That's when it happens!

“HIM! HIM!”

I look around trying to find out where the Cyborg is pointing to. But just at that moment I realize what the Cyborg is pointing.

He's pointing to me.

And in a matter of minutes I'm being arrested...a black bag thrown over my head!

I'm wake up nervous. My heart is racing. This can't be happening. I didn't even remember passing out. I didn't remember anything. I wake up naked. A robot is surrounding me. I'm in a vehicle. I know that much. As I look to my right I see a man. He's older. He had on lipstick but is dressed in men's clothing. He smiles at me and grins in a way.

A Gay. I'd heard about them. He had to be a Gay.

I'd never seen one this close in person.

“Are you sure this is him?” a voice says.

The voice is coming from the shadows. I am pinned down on a stretcher. I can't move enough to see where the voice is coming from. It doesn't sound familiar. It only sounds younger...more attractive.

“What's going on...” I try to say, but nothing more comes out that muffled noises. I've been gagged by the robots. I notice they are running scans on me. I'm not sure what the scans are for.

“No diseases,” the man with make-up states, “His feet are little rough. He'll need a pedicure. His skin made need some retinol. Look at this face though. Perfectly semetrical.”

“He's ok...” the voice states, “Seems like too much work if you ask me.”

The two men who are having this conversation are completely ignoring me. They are treating me more like a test animal than an actual human being. The man with the lipstick continues to examine with his eyes as the robots run all around me. The robotic hands poke at me, put lights in my eyes. The man with the lipstick has a pad in his hand. He's writing frantically taking notes on things. It kind of gives me the creeps on how intently he is staring at me.

Finally the robots take out my gag.

“What's going on?” I manage to say.

“Quiet please. His teeth are going to need work. Veneers. Not too many. He is in pretty good condition for someone who lasted in the Breeding Grounds until the age of 25...I must say. He's honestly quite adorable. Milk chocolate skin. Look at that.”

“I asked you a question.”

Finally the man acknowledged me, “I apologize. Your name is Marxis isn't it? Marxis VII?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Cid II. Dr. Cid, if you'd like,” he stated, “We've been searching for you. Searching almost a year for you to be precise.”

Dr. Cid was more effeminate than anyone I had ever met in my life. To be honest I found myself being actually in awe. A real life gay was definitely something that I didn't think I would be seeing. The thing that stood out to me was how clean he was. As he passed by me he smelled like rosemary and some perfume that I had never smelled before. He spoke with his hands and honestly seemed relatively friendly.

“What do you want with me?” I ask him, “Why are you looking for me?”

He stops taking notes long enough to really address me. This time he takes a long look at whoever is sitting in the shadows as though waiting for permission to continue. He must have gotten his permission because he turns to me in a flamboyant smile.

“Me and...my employer...have a proposition for you?”

“Whose your employer.”

“A very...important man.”

“And what is your proposition?”

“Marriage.”

That was it. He just left that sitting there. I waited for him to respond. The robots that had been busily moving around me even stopped. It seemed like the entire world just stood still at that moment. Nothing happened. He just stood there as though expecting me to respond almost immediately. I was just more confused then ever.

“Come again?”

“You are asexual. Special as in your sexuality can't be measured on the Kingsley scale. I trust my records have historical efficacy?”

“Uh---”

I had no idea what he was saying.

“Speak in simple terms,” the voice in the shadows said, “He is from the Breeding Grounds remember.”

I didn't see the person in the shadow but I could tell the person seemed blunt and almost rude for some reason. He looked like he wasn't entertained with me at all.

“I'm not an idiot,” I respond, “I know what he's saying. I'm just lost. Look. I broke the scale. Twice. I don't know what that means but I was banned from retaking it. I don't have a sexuality like other people. I'm just...me.”

That's what I told myself. That's what I went to bed every night hoping that it would make me feel better. Most nights it didn't.

“What if I told you that you didn't have to retake the test again?” Dr. Cid asked me.

“I'd say good because I'd probably break it again.”

Dr. Cid laughed. He was amused by me at least. He smiled in a somewhat friendly way as he turned in the shadows. Whatever expression the guy in the shadows had probably wasn't as warm because Cid quickly took that smile off his face.

“Dr. Cid, can I please have a moment alone with him?”

Dr. Cid looked at him, “As your campaign manager I think I should be here for it.”

Campaign manager?

“Please Cid.”

Just at that moment I realized where I was. It wasn't a car. No. I was flying. I was flying high in the sky. I was on a hovercraft.

The robots unshackled me from the stretcher and a door slid open. Dr. Cid gave me a smile and then walked out of the room followed by the robots. I watched closely in the shadows wondering who this person was.

In the next few minutes he revealed himself.

We were in the room a lone. The wall that he was sitting against lit up and it was clear that we were in the sky. I felt a feeling of vertigo and I braced myself on the stretcher. We were so high in the sky. Were were above everything. I could see the city below us in the vehicle we were riding in.

“Scared of heights?”

I looked over at the boy who was in the room with me. There was no other word to really describe him but handsome. He had to be in his mid or late 20s. Maybe even early 30s. He had on a blazer. It was cleaner than anything that I had seen in my life. It was a white suit that seemed like it had been designed just earlier that day. His skin contrasted with the white. He had brown skin and a nice hair cut.

His lips were full. He had a chiseled jawline. Everything was prim and proper. His fingernails were clean, crisp and hung right below his finger tips. Underneath his blazer was a tight white shirt. It clung to his body almost boasting abs chiseled to perfections and biceps peaking through the blazer. He didn't smile.

He just looked at me examining me with low hanging brows and intense eyes that stared through me like glass.

“Scared of falling,” I replied.

My tongue got stuck in my throat when I spoke. He was so intimidating by how beautiful he was. I wasn't anything really compared to him. He was gorgeous. He was better looking than anyone in the Breeding Grounds by far and that included me. The way he looked over at me made me think that he knew it. This had to be the most beautiful man in the world.

“My name is Marcel Anthony, the first. Do you know me?”

Even his name sounded sexy. Marcel...

“No...”

“I'm running for President,” Marcel told me.

He was young. I didn't know much about these new politics though. All I knew were my history books and usually presidents were a lot older but throughout time they got younger and younger. Still the age that Marcel was definitely seemed to be the youngest that I'd ever heard a president being. Maybe that was the new thing nowadays.

“We don't get a lot of television reception, down...you know...below...”

Marcel didn't seem entertained by my conversation. He definitely seemed a little off putting. He looked good AND he was powerful.

“Well...let's cut to the chase shall we?” Marcel stated, “Being that you are one in a million...my campaign manager believes you would look good on my arm.”

“Good on your arm?”

“You know what I mean? Don't they breeders these things?” Marcel asked.

“First off I'm not a breeder and secondly you don't have to be rude,” I snapped back, “I'm just asking for some clarification. I was kidnapped in the middle of the day after all.”

Marcel definitely was what I assumed a gay would be like. Beautiful. Powerful. Mean. He gave me this look that sent shivers down my spine but still there was something there. Some spark that I didn't understand.

And it shined bright when he crossed his arms and said, “I want you to marry me.”

To read the next chapter now go to www.crushedcrown.com