To Bask in the Moonlight

-'-

Chapter 1: The Bookstore Becomes Awkward

-,-

Taylor stood outside the entrance to the mall and examined the contents of his black and purple wallet. As people passed him, their thoughts radiated positively at him…but of course they only thought he was hot….mostly guys but that was his own fault for dressing the way he did.

He wore a yellow comfortably loose long-sleeved cashmere shirt that tied with a pink ribbon just above his pierced belly button which was decorated by a pink barbell. The pink mini skirt he wore stopped in the exact middle of his thighs with yellow leggings that continued until a bit below his knees and below that pink flip flops showed off his black painted toes. His usually short brown hair had added extensions so that his straight hair came just above his shoulders and flipped in to show off his black lined sea green eyes.

To an innocent bystander, Taylor was just another wannabe punker, preppy girl but he obviously was not. He had his reasons for dressing in drag that had to do with his parents not letting him out. But he used band and school as an excuse. A reason he joined band was for an excuse to stay after school…and ditch to the mall.

He sighed and ran a few fingers through his hair and entered the mall. He had exactly 40 dollars, 30 of which weren't his. A friend of his wanted a few books and Taylor had agreed on buying them for him. He searched for the bookstore even though he knew where it was…a short walk….right in front of his face was the bookstore.

It was empty from what he could see compared to the outside of the store where people were rushing from store to store to buy clothes and such. He looked for graphic novels section and pulled out the piece of paper his friend had handed him. Supposedly there was a big buy 3 get 1 free sale going on and his friend needed weird anime books to fulfill his lovely pleasures or something strange that anime people did.

Hey Taylor, get me Descendants of Darkness 7, 8, 9 and Legal Drug 2.

Love Henry

Taylor looked up and searched for both titles and their volumes. What the hell is this shit? He asked himself. He had once picked up one of these books from Henry and randomly read over one. A few minutes in and he thought he saw gay people. And some other comics Henry owned reminded Taylor of porn. How do people get off on this kind of stuff? Weirdoes…

"Excuse me." A person coughed.

Taylor glanced up, not really interested in what a random person had to say. "Um…hi?"

The guy that stood over him was a tad taller than him dressed in ripped jeans and a pink and gray striped Hollister polo which Taylor swore he saw in the girls section at the mall's Hollister. His golden blonde hair was worn down in a cleaner surfer styled way but was still trashy at the ends which were a darker brownish gold color. He looked and smelled just like he had just come straight from the beach...

"H-Hi." The surfer boy replied. "Um…I…sorry for interrupting your shopping I just…well we passed each other in front of this store and…" he mentioned to the front of the store.

What does this guy want? I have a buck to spare. Is that what you want? Taylor thought dully.

"I just wanted to give you a…uh compliment to like…make your day and stuff." The boy stuttered.

"Um…thanks?" Taylor suggested raising an eyebrow.

"I mean…I think you're really pretty and…um…I'm Joel." He stuck his hand out in front of him quickly.

Taylor smiled. How cute…he's embarrassed! "Taylor." Taylor shook his hand. It was such a lovely thing having a name that went both ways…so he didn't really have to lie to this…cute surfer boy.

Joel smiled. "I uh…so you like books obviously." He shrugged.

"Yeah…sort of." Taylor replied. "Fiction books actually." He looked at the section he was in. "My retarded friend made me come here to get these weird books."

"I uh…like Nonfiction books. Memoirs are my favorite. I think they're fun." Joel said. "Wow this is kind of awkward…talking in a bookstore."

Taylor smiled. "Yeah…" he replied quietly. He noticed the paper he was holding tightly was staring to get a little soggy between his sweaty fingers. Why was he so nervous?

"Um…so…you like coffee?" Joel asked.

"Oh jeez." Taylor blurted but quickly shut his mouth. He had no time to have coffee. He needed to get home and shit but… "I'm kinda busy right now…"

"Oh I can tell…Sorry." Joel replied. "Uh…"

Taylor sighed. "You got e-mail or a myspace?" he asked.

"Y-yeah. E-mail, myspace…it all works." Joel replied smiling.

I can't believe I'm doing this… He led Joel to the front register where he found the papers you write your e-mail on for the store's e-mail list and handed the pen to Joel. He wrote down his E-mail and myspace name and handed the pen to Taylor who did the same.

"I…I hope you don't think of my confrontation as negative…you know…pervs in bookstores…I actually hate guys that are mean and nasty to girls. And I'm actually very talkative if you get to know me…" Joel smiled and held out his hand again. "It was nice meeting you."

Taylor shook his hand. "Yeah…"

Joel turned and left the store quickly pocketing the piece of paper. Taylor stared at his own

Joel

The writing was neat and swirly and Joel's name had a heart around it. Taylor smiled and placed the paper carefully into his wallet folding it first twice. He returned to his book shopping and picked out Henry's books. After that he went into the Fiction section to glance at a few books he planned on reading.

Ah-hah! There you are Gay novel number 5! He thought victoriously as he pulled out a random book. The title said Dream Boy by Jim Grimsley. He had heard from his online friends that it was a book worth reading. But sadly it was short…only about 200 pages.

Taylor had a strange hobby of reading homosexual based books. Of course there was a reason for that…the obvious fact that he was gay and enjoyed to dress in drag. If his parents ever found out, he'd die a thousand deaths.

But there was something else about gay books that just…lured him. He called it "the unknown". A feeling of "wow this shit is really good give me more more more!" but in a less…horny way. He just enjoyed books.

He looked at his watch and grabbed the book and walked to the register to buy the books. After he paid he left the store, happily swinging the bag of books back and forth and ignored the voice in the back of his head that said "watch what you're doing and where you're going…he could be stalking you".

Joel couldn't be stalking him…he didn't seem the type to stalk people. Nevertheless, he looked behind him every few seconds and wondered why he felt so nervous. When he finally reached school, he went into the band room where he usually kept his normal clothes and went to the bathrooms at the backend of the school so no one could see him walking into a boy's bathroom.

He dressed quickly, eager to go home and see who this Joel really is, and left the bathroom. He left school through the back and headed for home practically skipping all the way.

He lived on a type of hill in Southern California in the vicinity of the Newport Beach area near Fashion Island and pretty close to UCI (University of California Irvine). The area he lived in was very nice, a lot of rich pregnant women walked around with round bellies and pushing strollers filled with their still freshly made children clad in cute clothes from Babystyle.

He personally hated living next to rich people…even though he was "rich" too. But his parents always kept the money away from him. They were extremely religious as well and prohibited him from going out on school days unless there's band or something similar.

As he neared the large gated house, he pulled out his key and unlocked the gate. It was so stupid to gate up the house…Taylor absolutely hated it. He closed the gate behind him and went into the house. The lights went on when he walked in and he growled, annoyed at whoever thought of automatic lighting.

"Tayay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Taylor jumped aside trying to dodge his flying sister. Krista hit the wood floor hard and missed the carpet where Taylor was standing to keep his bare toes warm. His younger sister pissed him off sometimes. She was all his parents wanted him to be: smart, social, kind, and beautiful. He was one of those things…but beauty really didn't do anything in real life unless he decided to be a hooker.

Krista was almost as tall as him, being just one year younger, and had long blonde hair tied up into a ponytail that reached her shoulders. She wore a pink miniskirt and a matching floral halter top. He could be a perfect girl like her but he was lacking one thing that she had in abundance: boobs. Other than that, he was a much prettier girl. Yup…

"Tayay, I missed you. How was school?" Krista asked quickly, forgetting that she had just fallen on her face.

"Wonderful Krista, I need to get online tell mom and dad I'm doing my homework and I shouldn't be disturbed lest I lose my train of thought and fail my classes." Taylor replied.

Krista raised an eyebrow. "Porn again?"

He stared at her as if she was dumb. "Kris, you know I don't do porn. Naked girls sicken me."

"Well duh, cause you're not straight and—"

"Shut the fuck up!" he hissed.

Krista blinked and clamped her hand over her mouth.

"Watch your moth around here Kris! I don't care if they're not around but they could have things around here and I do not want to get fucking kicked out of here because I'm…" Taylor trailed off.

"I'm sorry Taylor." She whispered. "I won't say it again."

Taylor sighed.

"So how was school?" Krista asked.

"The usual. Learning, getting bothered by Henry again to buy him books and hanging out with Cherise." Taylor shrugged.

"Cherise is mean." Krista muttered.

"Sometimes she is." Taylor replied. "Oh and I met a guy in the mall."

"OMG! Was he hot?!" Krista squealed.

Taylor shrugged. "Surfer boy."

"What'd you do? Did he ask you out? What happened?" Krista asked.

"Well it doesn't really matter cause all he really saw in me was a pretty girl in a book store." Taylor replied. "Even if I do go out with him…he'll eventually find out I'm a guy anyways."

"What's his name?" Krista asked ignoring the last part.

"Joel."

Krista squealed. "What a cute name!"

"Yeah…I'm gonna go check my myspace now." Taylor said as he slid away from her and went up the stairs to his room. In the middle of the messy room filled with posters of random guy models and some girl models from random magazines, there was a desk piled with papers and books and a computer.

Taylor slid easily into the leather chair and turned on his computer. While he waited for it to load, he pulled out his newly bought novel and slid a bookmark into the cover and put it in his backpack to read later during school.

Once the computer was on, he opened the internet and logged into myspace. He went to search and typed in Joel's e-mail. The result that popped up was a picture of Joel in a huge close-up with a large smirk on his face. Taylor smiled and clicked on it. He immediately scrolled down to the little section on the bottom and frowned. Joel's Orientation was Straight, but Taylor had expected that. But he was pleased to see that Joel was single. Even further down, he noticed that Joel went to UCI and was majoring in something Taylor really didn't care about and ignored.

He scrolled up to view the About Me section. Joel seemed like an interesting person…He skimmed through the short section. Joel was a creative poet and enjoyed to write essays.

Taylor cringed. He hated essays.

Joel lived in his own house alone while he studied at USC. He was happily searching for the girl of his dreams.

At this, Taylor frowned again. But why did he care anyways? Joel didn't really ask him out yet…not formally. He smirked and decided to make a new myspace for himself but then realized that he had given Joel his real e-mail. He changed his profile to Female and changed all the pictures and added a picture that made him look like a girl.

He smirked at his finished piece. His myspace friends would be so confused…but at least Joel wouldn't be. Myspace was such a lovely lifesaver.

-'-

Author's Notes: Thankfully, I don't live in Irvine or Newport. But I like laughing at people…lol. Anyways, this is my lovely attempt at…something different.

As in my other "stories" there is indeed some angst…but I use it sparingly. Well…um this is based on a true story. Some of it is…I just changed it around and made it prettier. EEEEEE! Fun stuff.

Thus, I give you my Valentine's Day Projecto. Short I know, but it's good short. And other chapter shall be more lengthened. funfun.

Luff to you all

R&R

Rina