Preface

It all started with Lea.

It was two hours into the flight after everyone was already bored with their various entertainments, and no one was talking much. Lea kneeled on her seat so she was facing backward and called, “Hey, Darren. My friend Valerie tells me that there's a pervey story about you that's gone viral.”

Darren lifted his earphones. “Did you say I was perve, and I have a virus?”

Lea laughed, “No, silly. I said…well, there's this writer called the Cimmerians, and she…or he? Well, he/she wrote this Klaine fanfic called The Muse that is supposed to be super-hot, and everyone's reading it.  Some people have even drawn art inspired by it and fake movie posters.  

"Anyhow, in the story Blaine is this middle aged children's book writer, and Kurt is this sixteen-year-old street kid, and Blaine goes all Humbert Humbert on him.”

“Who?” asked Chord.

“Humbert Humbert,” Lea explained. “He was the main character in Lolita who was seduced by a twelve-year-old girl.”

“Gross.”

“Some sexually ambiguous, split-personality, amateur writer is saying that Blaine is a pedophilic pervert, and I'm supposed to care...why?” asked Darren.

“Because it's really hot,” Heather piped up, fanning herself with her hand. “It's one of Taylor's and my favorites.”

“Your boyfriend and you read homoerotic fiction scribbled by barely literate writers making up stories about already made-up characters? I find that deeply disturbing,” said Darren.

“Your hot, hot, hot baseball player boyfriend gets off by reading about me naked? I think I'm OK with that,” Chris affirmed.

“I want to read about teenage Chris and old man Darren getting all squelchy,” said Naya, grinning.

“Blaine and Kurt,” Darren corrected. “Not Chris and Darren. We're actors, remember.”

“Well, it's interesting you said that, Naya, because I just happen to have copies for everyone,” Lea flourished a raft of papers. She began distributing them around. Darren gave Lea the stink eye, but he finally, reluctantly, took a copy for himself.

Then they all began reading.

Chapter 1 [Click on the chapter title to get the appropriate chapter from "The Muse."]

“What's ‘nebbish'?” asked Chord.

Jenna pointed across the aisle, “Dianna knows.”

“Why would I know?” asked Dianna defensively.

“Because you're Jewish, girl.”

“I went to Hebrew school, not Yiddish school. But, yes, I know. It means something like timid or ineffectual, Chord.”

“Oh, that's flattering,” muttered Darren.

“Well, who's ‘Ganymede'?” asked Chord.

“He's from mythology,” Jenna explained. “He was considered the most beautiful mortal who ever lived, so he was kidnapped by one of the gods—I forget which one; Zeus or somebody—anyhow, hes supposed to symbolize man-boy love.”

“God,” Darren griped, sliding down a bit in his seat.

“What's ‘jejune'?”

“Oh my God, Chord. Don't they have schools in Nashville?”

“Not good ones.”

“I don't know what jejune means, either,” chimed in Kevin.

“It means simplistic,” Darren grumbled. “Like all of you guys.”

“You're just bitter,” smiled Chris. “I think this story is great.”

Chapter 2

“Hot,” pronounced Naya, and all the other women nodded.

“The money thing is really good, too,” Amber sighed. “You know, the thing about it mattering to a point, and then not mattering. I know about that.”

Several of them—women and men—nodded at that.

“Do you believe in love at first sight?” asked Dianna to no one in particular.

“I believe in lust at first sight,” said Mark, “and I think love can happen pretty quickly afterward, sometimes.”

“You don't get to choose who you love,” said Amber.

Darren contradicted her, “That's bullshit.  We make choices all the time. We don't just get bull dozed. We have agency.”

“So, you're saying that Blaine would never love Kurt in real life?” asked Lea.

“I'm saying, first of all, that Blaine and Kurt don't have a real life, but, second of all, if they did, Blaine would never fall in love with Kurt because he's built boundaries, just like all of us do. Blaine would no more entertain the idea of loving a teenager than Mark would consider loving a hamster or Naya would consider loving a parakeet. We build fences, and we put the type of people we can love within that fence, and everything outside of that fence is not even a question.”

“So you're saying that love is constrained by cultural relativism—that it's a social construct?” asked Jenna.

“Hey college kids,” called Cory. “How about you speak English?”

“What I think Darren's saying,” explained Jenna speaking slowly, “Is that our culture dictates who is and who is not acceptable to love. In ancient Rome it was perfectly fine for men to have relationships with young boys, so men—men who were not deviant—fell in love with boys. In some cultures people get married when they're twelve, and that's normal. In our culture, we learn that you can't love people who are outside of a certain age range or a certain gender or even a certain social class, so you wouldn't even be tempted. It would be completely outside of your world view.”

“OK, I think I understood half of that,” Cory responded.

“Yeah, but what's so great about this story,” commented Mark, “is that it's completely believable that a guy like Blaine would fall for a guy half his age. And you want it to happen. You're rooting for them to get together. It doesn't feel creepy at all, even though it should.”

They all thought about that for a moment then Chord broke the silence, “Who's ‘Sappho'?”

Chapter 3

Kevin got up and went into the bathroom.

Cory pointed to the bathroom with his thumb. “Do you think he's…you know.” He made an up and down gesture with his fist.

“Ewww,” said Rachel.

“I don't get why Kurt was on the floor at the house,” Heather said. “Even if he didn't want to sleep in Blaine's bed, there was a couch right there.”

“I think it's symbolic of Kurt's feelings—of how low he is,” Cory hypothesized.

“Hey, that's pretty smart,” Mark said, pursing his lips and rocking his head back and forth.

“Well, he did go to school in Canada,” Chris joked, elbowing Cory in the ribs.

“Do you think Blaine could really pick up and carry Kurt?” asked Amber. “I mean, Darren's pretty built, but Chris isn't as skinny as all that.”

“Did you just call me fat?” Chris feigned outrage.

“You're a house, Chris,” Darren called. “The author left out the part where Blaine had to have hernia surgery the next day.”

“I can't believe my character smokes cloves,” complained Jenna. “That's disgusting.”

“Yeah, but it sounds like Tina has her shit together—documentary film-maker, sexy Asian husband. My character sounds like a pushy bitch,” Dianna lamented as Kevin emerged from the bathroom.

“Quinn is a pushy bitch,” reasoned Kevin. “But I did wonder, when Quinn said, ‘eating a taco,' do you think she meant that euphemistically?”

Dianna reached out and swatted Kevin on the arm with the back of her hand, “You're a pig, Kev.”

“'Apocalyptically drunk,'” quoted Cory, “I've so been there.”

Chapter 4

No one said a word, but eyes surreptitiously shifted sideways to look at Darren, and then they shifted the other way to look at Chris. Several people crossed and recrossed their legs. Darren looked out the window and stared hard at something on the horizon.

Chapter 5

“I'm so tired of this crap,” sighed Mark.

Lea rose to the bait, “What crap?”

“This crap about fundamentalist Christians.” He held up the manuscript and shook it a little. “This is not at all what fundamentalists believe.”

“You're not serious,” Chris shot back. “This is exactly the stuff that fundamentalists like Fred Phelps believes.”

“Who's Fred Phelps?” asked Chord.

“I am serious,” Mark responded heatedly to Chris while ignoring Chord. “This is just the point that I'm making. Assholes like Fred Phelps call themselves fundamentalists, and people who don't know any better, like this Cimmerians chick, think that fundamentalists are really like this. It's like the World Trade Center. It wasn't like, ‘Oh, here's a few crazies.' It was like, ‘All Muslims are out to get us.'”

“Seriously, guys, who's Fred Phelps?” Chord repeated.

“He and his Westboro Baptist wackos protested in front of the theater when I was doing The Laramie Project. Those people were scary,” Jenna shuddered.

“Oh, that douchebag!” Chord pulled it from his memory, “The one who picketed funerals of people who died of AIDS with signs like, ‘God hates fags'?”

“Yeah, that asshole,” said Mark, obviously worked up. “But that's the thing, see. Phelps is no more a fundamentalist Christian than he is a ballet dancer. This story says that ‘one of the primary beliefs of fundamentalist Christianity is that everyone is the enemy.' That's the exact opposite of true fundamentalist Christianity. If you take a literal interpretation of the Gospel, you have to love your enemy and turn the other cheek. You don't spread hate; you spread love. Of course, a whole lot of asshat politicians seem to think you can call yourself a Christian and then advocate for the death penalty or war. How you can love your enemies and then kill them, they never explain that.”

“Dude, chill,” Cory soothed.

“No, Home Schools right,” Naya chimed in. “True Christians would never do the things described in this chapter. I mean look at us,” she gestured around the cabin. “Most of us were raised in Christian homes, but we don't think gay people are possessed by demons.” She paused for a beat before continuing, “I mean, Chris isn't possessed by a gay demon; he is a gay demon.” Chris threw a wadded up napkin at her.

“All I know is that the majority of people who find it necessary to tell me that I'm a faggy, child-molesting pervert intent on turning all straight men in order to get a toaster seem to always justify it based on God,” Chris pointed out.

“No, Chris,” Mark responded, “I'm not saying that's OK, not even a little. I'm saying that messed up people with messed up ideas are always looking for justification, and for some of them, that's one or two verses of the Bible taken out of context while ignoring the entirety of the Gospel. But men on death row for rape or murder or whatever will also tell you that they are good people; that doesn't make it so.”

“So you actually believe there's a war against Christians?”

“Did I say that?  Of course there isnt. Like, eighty percent of Americans say they're Christians, but, if they really were, then the world would be a lot less messed up.”

“I'm not going to argue that point with you,” said Jenna, “but I disagree with you saying that the Cimmerians are arguing that fundamentalist Christians hate homosexuals.”

“But it says it right here,” Mark shook the manuscript again.

“No, Mark,” Jenna disagreed. “The Cimmerians are writing Kurt's thoughts. Kurt's sixteen, and he's been tortured by people making a claim to Christian fundamentalism. You really can't blame him for being bitter. I think the author…the authors…are being true to the character. ”

“OK, good point,” Mark conceded.

“I can't believe they killed off Burt,” mused Heather. “That took balls.”

They all nodded.

Chapter 6

“I don't know about the rest of you,” said Cory, “but I really want to see Chris in a blonde wig now.”

“I want to see Darren in a NASCAR t-shirt,” said Kevin.

“Do they really not have child emancipation laws in Ohio?” Amber asked, which prompted everyone to reach for their phones to Google that, and then they realized they were on an airplane.

“I have a friend from Ohio,” Jenna responded, “and I'm pretty sure she told me that a minor can't sue for emancipation, but a parent can file to stop supporting the child before they turn eighteen.”

“That is messed up,” responded Amber, hotly.

“Who do you think the judge will be?” asked Dianna. “I bet it's Sue.”

“No way,” Leah disagreed. “There's only one chapter left, so it has to be someone who would be sympathetic. I bet it's Will Schuester.”

“No,” Jenna pointed out. “Will is already in the story. Maybe it's Mike. No, wait, he's already in the story. I bet it's Figgins.”

“No, Figgins is too wishy-washy to be a judge,” reasoned Naya. “Who's left?”

No one could think of anyone.

Chapter 7

“Ooh,” said Lea. “I think we should start calling Chris, ‘Small World.'”

“Or tumblebug,” suggested Heather.

“I will end you both,” Chris warned.

“I don't think I completely understood that rimming scene,” choked Kevin, who was clearly trying to suppress a laugh. “Maybe Chris and Darren could act it out.”

“Well,” Chris played along, “since I'm the recipient, I guess I'm game if Darren is.” He gave a wide, fake smile to Darren. “I'm squeaky clean,” he winked.

Darren, red-faced, flipped them both off simultaneously, using a different hand for each.

“Stereo,” said Cory, admiringly.

“OK, but seriously,” said Kevin, not really seriously, “If Kurt is on his knees and Blaine is…nose-deep, shall we say…how does Kurt have his hands in his hair? That would require a lot of flexibility, right?”

“Kurt's not on his knees, Kev,” explained Jenna. “He's on his back.”

“If he's on his back, how does Blaine reach his…?”

“Oh for God's sake, he pulls his knees up, you idiot!” The outburst came from Darren.

“Wow, Darren. It sounds like you've given this some thought,” teased Lea.

Darren rolled his eyes and folded his arms.

“Hey, Dianna,” Mark teased. “It looks like your Quinn got knocked up again. Have you considered going on the pill?” Amber whacked him on the top of the head.

“What's the Anne Rice book?” asked Chord. “I don't remember this man-boy love thing with the vampire stuff.”

“It's Belinda,” Jenna answered.

“Never heard of it,” said Chord.

Several cast members echoed, “Me, neither.”

“I'm sad it's over,” sighed Dianna. “I want more.”

“Funny you should mention that,” said Lea, brandishing another stack of papers. “This one is called ‘To Shake the Pride of Angels.'”

Darren groaned and covered his face with the airplane pillow.