"You think?" I took the joint from him and took a big hit.

"Oh, yes." He nodded. "You're going to make a big splash tonight at my little party."

I spent the rest of the day grooming. Blair taught me how to put gel in my hair; how to shave my balls, and he also decided that I needed to shave my chest and underarms. "Are you sure I need to do this?" I looked at him dubiously. My balls already were bare, and I had trimmed down the rest of my pubic hair with electric clippers. "I mean, I kind of like that hair."

"It's all in the marketing, darlin'," he replied. "Yes, I'm sure. The smoother you are, the more they will like you. It will make you look even younger than you already do-and we're selling you as a farm boy from Kansas right off the bus."

"What do you mean by sell?" I started lathering the spot in the middle of my chest where all my hair was located.

"I don't mean I am going to pimp you out, if that's what you're afraid of." He burst out laughing. "Lord! No, honey, you're a product-remember? All of us are products, and we have to make ourselves as desirable as we can. We package ourselves into the most appealing product for as many different consumers as we can. And I don't mean that we have to sleep with all of them-no, just being desired is the end result we want, always. As long as you remember that-you'll go far. Now finish shaving off that hair, I need to call the caterers."

I spent the rest of the day by myself, with Blair poking his head in every once in a while to check on my progress. Around six, he sent me to his father's workout room to "pump up", which felt kind of silly to me. I'd been lifting weights ever since junior high for sports, and I'd never really thought about weight lifting as anything other than a way to improve my athletic performance-and once I was out of high school, I was done with it. But every wall in Steve Blanchard's workout room, which was better equipped than the one at Southern Heights, was mirrored. And as I did curls with a pair of twenty pound dumbbells, I watched as the veins in my arms popped out, and once I set the weights down, I realized my biceps did look better. I heard Blair saying, "it's all in the marketing" in my head, and I began to understand what he meant. He thought I looked good-but I could look better. And looking better was what it was all about. I decided then and there to start working out at CSUP's gym when we got back on Monday.

I showered after pumping up, and slipped back into the red bikini, staring at myself in the mirror. Now, I felt kind of self-conscious about the long stretch of white skin from the bottom of the swimsuit to just above the knee. But my chest gleamed in the bathroom lights, and I raised my arms to inspect my underarms, which were white and pristine. They stung a little bit as well, but Blair said that would pass. My muscles were all pumped up. No errant long curly hairs were sticking out of the bikini anywhere.

I looked sexy.

The bathroom door opened and Blair whistled. "Damn, boy, you are one hot stud." A joint was dangling from his mouth. "Just wanted to let you know people are starting to arrive. Almost time for your grand entrance." He gave me that evil grin I loved so much. "And just for the record, you're mine, okay? No sneaking off to get fucked in the bushes-or a van-"

"Blair!"

"Just teasing you, dear." He brushed my cheek with his lips.

"Blair-"I hesitated.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

His face softened. "Oh, Jeff, you don't ever have to thank me. I hope you know that."

"No, I do." I sat down on the toilet seat. "Thank you. You've changed my life."

"I hope you mean that in a good way."

"Yeah, yeah I do." Maybe it was the pot I'd been smoking all day, or the occasional glasses of wine Blair brought me, but I felt like I was going to break down and cry. No one had ever been as sweet to me as Blair before. Kevinwell, Kevin had been my best friend back in Kansas, but I'd never dared to be honest with him about who I was. Blair knew who I was, knew the truth about me, and he cared about me anyway. He cared enough to bring me down to Los Angeles and introduce me to his friends. He cared enough about me to teach me about being gay. I felt tears bubbling up in my eyes.

"Oh, girl, don't cry." Blair slid an arm around me. "This is a party, and you can't be going down there all puffy-eyed." He kissed me on the cheek.

"I love you, Blair."

I felt him stiffen, and knew instinctively that I'd said the wrong thing. Without looking at him, I went on, "You're the best friend anyone could ever ask for. You're like my brother."

He relaxed, and I made a mental note-never say I love you to him, no matter how much you mean it, he's not comfortable with that. He stood up. "Now, dry your eyes and come down to the party. Do me proud."

"Okay." I stood up and smiled at him. "Let's party."

The evening passed in a blur. I'm sure I walked around with my mouth open in awe all night long, but I didn't care about the impression I was making on anyone. At its height, there were about fifty people there-all men, all gay, and all beautiful. I recognized one guy from an exercise infomercial I'd seen on a cable channel once for an ab machine, and he was stunningly beautiful. Another guy I recognized from a commercial for shaving cream, another from underwear ads, and so on. There was a guy who looked vaguely familiar to me-and then I realized when he was a kid he'd been on one of those live-action Saturday morning shows. Another guy with an amazing ass turned out to have been an Olympic figure skater. Everyone was beautiful, everyone was sexy, everyone was kind-and didn't seem to mind that I could never remember anyone's name. The figure skater just smiled as I apologized for forgetting his name and said, "It's okay, you're pretty dear. You can be forgiven almost everything-except giving crabs."

I got touched a lot, but never in an ugly or scary way. It was always just an appreciation of some sort-maybe that sounds naive, but none of them touched with any ulterior motives, or so it seemed. Someone would come up to me and drape an arm over my shoulder while he made small talk, and maybe his hand would drop down and stroke my ass, but there was no follow-through, no requests for my phone number, no offer of theirs. It was, I don't know, nice. They asked me about myself, what I wanted to do with my life, and I couldn't really be from Kansas-was anyone really from there? But what might have seemed in a different tone of voice mean and condescending, was said in a teasing manner-and every Kansas remark was followed by "If they grow them like this in Kansas I'm taking the next bus to Topeka!"

Any self-consciousness I might have felt about my skimpy little bikini was gone within a few moments of joining the party. I had more on than most of the guests-many of whom were wearing glorified jockstraps that showed their asses.

And what beautiful asses they were!

Ordinarily, I would have worried about getting hard in the little bikini-but because there were so many beautiful men there, I was on overload. I couldn't stare at one for long before another one came into view who was just as gorgeous as the previous one. And everyone knew me as Blair's new friend Jeff, who'd just moved to California from Kansas.

"Have you ever done any modeling?" one man with long blond hair and a diamond stud in one ear asked me.

"No," was all I could think to respond.

"I'll give Blair one of my cards. Give me a call if you want to get started." He winked at me. "You could do quite well for yourself. I can just see you on a billboard."