Well, well, how the hell are you all? dreamboy!, February 1995 is open for business. I'm happy to say, this month, that I have winners to my contest. Can you believe it? Some of you actually participated and had a good time doing it. Although the number of entries is small, I appreciate the effort everyone gave. It's "in-VIG-eratin'." The three winners for my super-exciting contest are: TOM SESSLER! ERIC CHUANG! KENNY GRONO! Each will receive a free copy of DECEMBER 22. By far the greatest book ever to see print. You can e-mail the winners and ask them yourselves. They'd be fools not to love it. And I have another exciting announcement. Or at least I think so. dreamboy! has finally topped 100 readers. It took a long eight and a half months, but I finally got there. I'm just as amazed as you are, if not more so. How long do you think it'll be before I hit 200? Sixteen months? Never? It'll be an interesting thing to watch. Do me a favor and forward dreamboy! to someone you know. Just one person. Or better yet, forward it to your favorite mailing list. Like for the New York Rangers or something. Post it in alt.rec.cats or alt.sex. Somewhere you frequent. Somewhere where someone will get upset. Thank you for your time, and enjoy. I do my best to. Chris PS - And a happy, though belated, Valentine's Day. Smooch, smooch. Slobber, slobber. ***** dreamboy! currently has 103 amazing readers. ***** February 1, 1995 I'm the passenger in a small automobile. Maybe a Geo Prizm. My brother is driving--or sitting behind the wheel, rather. We're in a super-jam and no one is going anywhere. The road, I'd guess, is like a hundred lanes wide. We're all following a huge, super-slow-moving truck with a stage on the back. No, it's actually a gigantic television screen. The President of the United States is going to make his State of the Union Address. It's his first public appearance and everyone is anxious to see what he looks like. We see the silhouette of a slim figure, sitting in a director's chair. Slowly the camera turns to the front of the figure and the lights come up. The President turns out to be a woman. A black or Hispanic woman, to boot! How the hell did she ever get elected? She starts talking about a more loving, more nurturing America, and I think to myself, "Oh boy, is she going to push the wrong buttons." She just goes on and on--flapping her lips--and Jon doesn't like her one bit. I'm completely amazed, and wonder just how far she's going to go. And then she says it. She says she wants to model America after...after... "the Vagina." I can feel the tension in the air as hundreds of blue-collar men in nearby automobiles become furious. And to make matters worse, she keeps saying it. Vagina, Vagina, Vagina. She should stop, I think, but she doesn't. Debris hits the streets as we drive past the World Trade Center. Angry Americans are tossing objects from the roof, down into the traffic jam. "Fuck," I think, "we're going to get killed." I lie on my back, in the car, and push my feet to the ceiling. I'm going to save myself, and supporting the roof of the car is the key. Somehow, Jon manages to get out of the traffic. The speech is over and now we're cruising down the 101. February 2, 1995 Scott, Jinko, and I are all walking up a hill, towards the peak. We're walking along a very famous road, but I don't know which one. We're going to work. We're all supposed to be walking together, but I keep moving both ahead and behind the group. Jinko reaches the peak before I do, and yells. I run over and say, "Holy Cow." At the top of this hill, you can see the entire San Fernando Valley. It's snowing, if you can believe that, coming from a cloud layer which is even with the peak. Our side--the west side--is cool and foggy, while the valley is full of snow. It's a beautiful and amazing sight. We continue onward, towards MotionWorks. I pack a perfect snowball and throw it at Scott. I'm just fun that way. I miss him, unfortunately, but it's the thought that counts. I pack a second snowball and throw it at him and again I miss. I pack a third snowball and look at Jinko with a devilish grin. Laughing, she says, "if either of you throw a snowball at me, I'll see that you're fired." That's not going to stop me. We continue along and come upon large pools of city slush. I step in a puddle when we get to the building. Telepathically, I communicate with Linda. Tim Sakamoto keeps calling her, waking her, and telling her about the snow in the valley. "Big deal." We approach a man with a dog. I make another snowball and through it at Scott and Jinko. Almost got 'em! The man is helping a stray dog. I ask him about the stray and the dog nibbles my pinky. It's a guard dog, and he found it roaming around. He goes on and on and I want him to stop talking, but he doesn't, so I just leave. * * * Ed Svetlik is criticizing me because my ears are filled with wax. February 3, 1995 I think I might send my resume to outer space. I have just as good a chance as any getting a new job that way. February 4, 1995 I'm guarding a government compound against intruders. It's a large, open area--about one hundred feet below ground level. The sides of the compound slant upward to street level. There's a fence at the top, and the slanted sides consists of rocks and thick foliage. I hear something. Frantically, I search through the dense vegetation in search of intruders. And then I see them. A young girl and a "mother" figure are walking down the side of the hill. I won't be fooled, however. I know they're zombies. So I wait until they get to the bottom and then I attack. I use my fists and large sticks, in an attempt to sever their heads. It's almost funny. The zombies are slow, giving me ample time to beat them. But it's having almost no effect. I can beat them and beat them and still they keep coming back. If only I could sever their heads from their bodies. That would kill them for sure. Two more zombie women and an old zombie man show up. I attack the two women and hit one of them in the head with a Louisville Slugger. Her rotting head takes a lot of damage, but doesn't completely sever from the torso. I hit the second woman-zombie and she falls to the ground. She's on all fours, actually, naked, smiling a weird smile. Her backside is facing me and I can see right into her huge, open vagina. It's covered with a light, bloody film, and thick twine is hanging out. I grab the twine and start pulling. The zombie turns her head and growls ferociously. The string is very long and moldy. I yank out about three feet of it before a nasty-ass, saturated tampon bubbles out. I'm disgusted by the menstruating zombie, so I swing my axe and hack her brain right from her head. The first woman-zombie, along with the old-man-zombie and and the mother-and-daughter-zombies launch a slow attack, so I retreat. The house at the rear of the compound is my house. I run into the back yard, to find my father barbequing chickens. The old-man-zombie is wearing a Captain's hat. He approaches my father and almost bites his neck, which is really bad, because it would turn him into a zombie. I grab a fiery poker from the barbeque and notice there's a flaming chicken on the end. I stab the old-bastard-zombie and yell, "Fire!" It scares the old-zombie, but he won't catch on fire. So I beat him with a heavy stick with a rusty nail on the end. The chicken is ruined, but I put it back on the flame. My father will never know, I bet. The small-girl-zombie attacks and I grab her by her arm and swing her around and around. Dizzy, I toss her into moving traffic, as two large trucks are barreling down the road. She gets crunched and the sound is amazing. As the two Peterbilts drive away, I can see her little zombie-legs dangling from underneath the front axle. The radio says something about zombies being everywhere, and I think, "Just great." * * * I'm in a room with a lot of people. Is this a party? If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was. I'm in the corner, and Linda's friend Frank is hanging around. Out from nowhere, a young girl shows up. Frank and the girl are talking. He's telling her I'm gay, or something. Whatever. Frank is boring me. The girls turns to me and starts flirting. She sits really close to me, as I lay my head down on the bar. So close, in fact, she buries her face in my armpit. I warn her against the smell, but she doesn't care. It should be very bad and intolerable, but she seems to like it. Really like it. I think that's a beautiful thing. February 5, 1995 I'm waiting at some sort of indoor bus stop, located in a living room. There's a large crowd to my right, consisting of unknowns. My eyes are fixed on a large-screen television. I have a steak knife and I'm not afraid to use it. Gregory Hines walks by--look at me the wrong way, buddy, and you're dead. I'll cut you open like a chicken. Linda comes over from downstairs. She's wearing a short, black skirt, which is very unlike her. She asks me what type of underwear she should wear. "What?" "Should I wear the big ones or the old ones?" I don't know, I tell her. So she pulls up her skirt, revealing large, powder blue bloomers with a little-girl panty-pattern on them. "Those are fine," I say. "Great!" She turns and runs off. Billy Plodzien appears on the big screen television. He's in a movie, as a supporting actor, and he plays a stupid man named Chris. After all these years, Billy is still large and fat. He's wearing a black coat, and his hair is greased back, gangster-like. Someone says something and Billy starts dancing on national television. I think it's incredibly embarrassing, but the audience loves it. Fools. * * * Brian Inerfeld and I are going to school. It's raining, and we're walking down a darkened freeway with large groups of others. I'm walking ahead of Brian. In the distance, I see an older man slip and fall in a puddle, getting himself completely soaked. I want to laugh, but it's really not that funny. I walk back to Brian, because something seems to be up. Someone stole his purse and makeup, and now he's really sad. Should we still go to school, I wonder? Or should we attend local classes? We haven't been to locals for weeks, and I know we're going to get bad grades. It's my last year and I'm taking biology classes. Why am I so stupid? I used to like biology, but now I don't. The teacher talks down to me. February 6, 1995 I'm in a strange apartment unit. Am I in another city? Let's pretend it's Tokyo. The back wall is glass. Just a huge window to the brutal outside. The landscape is desolate; the buildings burning. High-temperature fire quickly approaches. What to do? I run for the front of the unit. It's Japanese-style, with a Japanese family sitting on low cushions. I look up and realize I left the front door open. This is very bad, because someone evil could've entered and stolen everything. Is that Lord Rayden in the distance? February 10, 1995 I'm looking up at the large screen. All my flags appear in wireframe, yet colored appropriately. I'm standing among my audience, and Beethoven's Eroica is playing. I feel pretty good, and the audience cheers. February 11, 1995 I'm at work. We're all sitting around a big table, set up in the middle of the lobby. Rick is filling out time-sheets, and says he's missing some of mine. I handed them in, but Tamala must have misplaced them. He's missing three days worth. Rick turns and asks me for my hours. I tell him I spent a whole day at the editing bay with Jinko. He looks at me curiously, and then writes my hours down. He leaves. Jinko grabs me by the hair and pulls my head back. Did I just give out secret information? Did I say something I shouldn't have? Our lobby-located gathering is a going-away party for Max, and maybe Candice. They've both just been fired, so we're all eating cake. Max starts talking, answering questions about what he's going to do next. He gets teary-eyed, and excuses himself from the table. This hits a nerve and makes me really sad. I reach out and touch Max on the shoulder, but it's meaningless. He gets up and walks off. I turn to Jinko, who's at my left. I'm sad and she's looking deep into my eyes, sympathetically. The room is hot--very hot--and her face is covered in a thin layer of sweat. I can feel my own perspiration trickling down my forehead. The heat is extreme, all of the sudden, and I run my fingers through my hair. Jinko touches the end of my nose with her forefinger and smiles. February 12, 1995 Hockey! I'm playing rollerhockey with Scott Brescher and Mark Richmond, among others. There's no ball this game--we're using a frisbee. If you shoot it right, you can get the frisbee to fly, as if you threw it. Shoot--shoot. I make some great shots and tag Scott once in the mid-section. I'm in the corner, and I try to keep it away. He keeps the pressure on, so I spin and dump it. The frisbee soars to the other side of the court, and right down the sewer. Shit. I skate over and call to Scott three times. We lift up the metal grate and I climb down. The sewer is full of green, opaque water. I'm on one ledge, and the frisbee is on the far ledge. I'm standing on a wood plank, and don't realize it at first but the plank is quickly sliding towards the dark tunnel. Big deal, right? Well yeah, because I know the huge, disgusting sewer monster is going to lunge out from the dark and eat me. * * * It's nighttime and I'm on a covert operation. I climb up the hillside to the Hollywood sign, with the intent to alter. Using sheets of black and white plastic, I change the sign to read "GUILTY". * * * I go over to Joli's place. She opens the front door, and I find myself in the foyer. She leaves. I'm walking around--snooping, maybe--checking out the visible rooms. Joli's mother is in the kitchen, her back facing me. In another room, I find her sister lying face down on the bed. I don't know what she looks like--I can only imagine. She's got a good figure, though. I can tell by her tight, body-revealing clothes. I don't need to be seeing this. Testosterone levels approach critical. Joli comes back and leads me to her bedroom, where again she leaves me. I look out the window, and find myself among a field of apartment structures. I can see through the cracks in Joli's walls, to the unit next door. Or I can almost see. I can make out movement, but no clear images. That is, until I turn around and look in the mirror. For some reason, this reflected angle allows a clear view. I see a topless woman with Egyptian or Cleopatra-style make-up jumping up and down on the bed. As you can imagine, her stuff's flopping every which way. This is a weird place. I walk over to the window and find, to my right, a naked girl sitting on the balcony below. She's totally naked, and not one bit embarrassed by my gaze. To my left, I see another girl. I stare at her and she gives me the finger. Topless females are everywhere. Joli re-enters the room, tells me she had sex the other day, and starts sucking on my penis. Linda walks in, throws a fit, and things just get ugly. February 13, 1994 I'm a generic worker in a strange building. Everything's mechanized, or robotic, and I find myself taking the elevator to the top floor. I find myself confronted by some type of automated ramp-arm. It picks models up from a specific platform and places them on the ground. I sit on the arm as it closes. It pushes me to the wall, and I fear I'll be smashed to death. But no, there's some type of breaker which prevents the machine from killing me. I assume it'll place me back where it got me, but that doesn't happen. The ground opens and the arm lowers me into its inner workings. I'm going to be swallowed--swallowed into the machine! The floor doors close and everything gets dark. I'm lying upside down--feet facing the sky--and I can see the room above me. Will I die hear? Will the management hear me hollering? February 16, 1994 I'm encouraging an older, tired woman to shoot everyone in her family. To shoot them with a shotgun. Her will is weak, so I think I can do it. ***** Copyright(C)1995 by Christopher Dante Romano. All Rights Reserved. Any similarity between characters, names, and institutions and actual persons and institutions is purely coincidental and should not be inferred.