#ChristmasHatesYouToo Read online

  #ChristmasHatesYouToo

  By E.F. Mulder

  Born December 25, Noel Beebe is tired of having his birthday overshadowed by all things Christmas. While looking for love on social media, he comes across a prospective new beau just in time to celebrate the Big 3-0, someone who encourages him to take back his day and say thumbs down to Christmas! On a trip to the Big Apple, Noel does just that, flipping off the Rockefeller Center tree and demanding his coffee in a nondecorative paper cup as a fun birthday prank. His act of defiance is caught on video and soon goes viral, leading to a backlash all over the Twitterverse, Internet, and TV. Suddenly what Noel thought would be his best birthday—and even Christmas—yet is shaping up to be his worst. Can his family and his potential boyfriend prove to the world that Noel isn’t the Scrooge he’s been labeled?

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  About the Author

  By E.F. Mulder

  Visit Dreamspinner Press

  Copyright

  1

  WE STOOD a fair distance from the huge Norway spruce as Al Roker started the countdown and the mayor prepared to throw the switch. Ethan shivered, so I put my arm around him for warmth. For only November 29, it was awfully cold in New York City.

  “Six, five, four….” Anticipation built for the moment that thirty thousand multicolored bulbs would burst into sparkling, spectacular illumination and usher in the spirit of the upcoming holiday. Despite the day we’d had, I was rather excited.

  “Three, two, one—Merry birthday!” everyone shouted.

  “Aww.” I felt all mushy inside. “Did you set that up?” I asked.

  The whole crowd hadn’t said it, but a good dozen or so spectators standing close by had. “Christmas sucks!” That was Ethan’s only answer—a loud one—and it made the haughty woman standing beside us in Rockefeller Plaza gasp. “Come on.” He grabbed me by the arm. “Let’s get closer, so we can get a snap of you mooning the stupid tree.”

  “Huh?”

  Ethan started shoving through the wall of people, dragging me along, even though I had a good eight inches and at least eighty pounds on him.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t,” I said.

  “Come on, No-el…. Do you hate Christmas or not?”

  I rolled my eyes. It irked me every time it happened. “Not Noelle, like a girl or Christmas,” I would say. “Think Noël Coward, the writer. My first name rhymes with Joel—or as my middle school peers pointed out relentlessly, also toilet bowl.” Unlike my mother, however, who accidentally mispronounced people’s monikers all the time—especially those of celebrities—Ethan was simply teasing me.

  WE’D MET on Twitter only a few weeks prior. The hashtag #MyBirthdaySucksBecause was trending, and I had written #MyBirthdaySucksBecause there isn’t a single cake and candles pic of me without a frigging Christmas tree in the background.

  It was true. I had arrived, the son of Kate and Stuart Beebe, as a robust bundle of joy around 4:00 a.m. on December 25, 1986. My parents had further tormented me by naming me what they had, which prompted another hashtag, #MyNameSucksBecause. No matter how old I got, almost every single year, someone called me a Christmas baby, and it annoyed the hell out of me.

  Ethan answered me the day the birthday hashtag was going strong with #MyBirthdaySucksBecause it’s February 29. I was born in 1992 and I’m only six!

  I up-sized his profile pic. It was him on a beach in white pants and an open blue shirt I immediately stripped off him in my head. Twenty-four-year-old Ethan was hot, the kind of guy anyone interested in men imagined doing really dirty things with. He had dark hair and even darker bedroom eyes, with a pair of dimples deep enough to catch cum that missed its intended target, that being his beautiful magenta lips in my fantasy. I continued the daydream by shoving him face-first into a mall Christmas tree, then getting down on my knees to eat his ass. “Now turn around so I can test my theory about those dimples,” I’d say when close to orgasm.

  I remembered then how much it pissed me off to see Christmas trees at Kmart before Halloween. The birthday hashtag really brought out my yuletide crankiness.

  “Screw the tree thing!” I said to Ethan in my mind. “Let’s fuck in a pumpkin patch, on the hugest one we can find instead.”

  In the next moment, I was scolding myself. “There you go again. Some guy says hello on Twitter, and you’re falling in love. Idiot.” I said all that aloud. My Irish setter, Red, looked up as if I was talking to him. “Sorry, buddy. Daddy’s just being a moron again. A guy ain’t going to meet the love of his life on social media. I should have learned that lesson last time, huh?”

  I couldn’t help but think of Bart. I thought of him way too much. Way too often—still—sometimes with anger, often quite wistfully.

  Bart Durden…. I’d known right away the name was fake, but scammers have a way to rationalize everything. Bart and I were summer lovers, every bit as sweet and lustful as Danny and Sandy in my mother’s favorite movie of all time. Just like with Ethan, it was a hashtag that brought us together: #AreYouLonesomeTonight? We both were, but not for long. Bart and I had each other, every day and every night after that, and just like Danny and Sandy, we even had our own song to play over flashbacks in my mind. I’d written it myself after chatting for about a month. How dumb was that?

  Do you sing? Bart had asked when I’d told him.

  My brothers say angry crows sound better, and when I can’t help but join in with the radio, the dog leaves the room.

  The lyrics are great.

  I’d posted them to his Facebook page.

  But I want to hear the tune. Come on, Noel… just for me?

  Don’t laugh—even though I bet you’re adorable when you do.

  You’re adorable.

  Bart had seen photos of me—and we’d video chatted—one way. His profile pic was a big black paw. I assumed he was a large hairy bear, just like me, until he told me later what it really represented.

  I work as a dog walker part-time. I printed up business cards to hand out at college. It’s sort of my logo.

  Bart had created his Facebook page just to DM with me. I was his only “friend.” There was red flag number one. At the time, I’d found it sweet and romantic, though, as if we were the only two people in the world.

  I have to stay somewhat anonymous. He’d explained it all away, admitting what I’d already known, that Bart Durden was an alias.

  Let me guess, your favorite TV show and movie, I’d said.

  Book. The movie disappointed me, to be honest. They left so much out.

  I concur. So why the secrecy? You a spy? I asked with a smiley face. That would be kind of sexy.

  I’m a chicken. Except instead of a coop, I live in the closet.

  I felt bad for Bart then, and I tried to offer comfort.

  I’m still in school.

  I’d already known he was a few years younger. He had never put an exact number to it, but mentioned several times that he had started college late.

  A couple more credits to go. I’m taking summer classes. I’ll be done the end of August. My father has said on numerous occasions he’d cut any gay son off financially, immediately and permanently.

  I’m so sorry, Bart.

  As soon as I’m done, I’ll get seventeen jobs if I have to in order to support myself. I’ll pay him back too. I will. It’s 2016. I’m twenty-six years old and shouldn’t be afraid to come out. What does it say about me that money is more important than pride right now?

  It might say you’re not being honest with yourself. Forgive me for saying so, but it might not be about the money at all—at least not totally. What age is old enough
not to be hurt by a family member’s rejection? Maybe it has more to do with that.

  Maybe. I’m going to tell him, though.

  And I’ll be here for you, to make things better if you need me.

  You always make me feel better—about everything.

  I was the songwriter, but he always had the perfect lines.

  Anyway, I sang for him. Strumming on my guitar, I performed “Five Ways to Love You,” a composition about two people loving each other with all of their senses. Sure enough, Red bolted before I got to touch. It was appropriate in the end, because Bart and I never made it that far either. In actuality, the song didn’t apply to us at all. A song about us would have been all about wishing and longing and feeling like a fool in the end.

  Through dozens—make that hundreds—of online conversations we laughed through May, as Bart turned me on to British sitcoms we watched together online—The Vicar of Dibley, Are You Being Served?, Keeping Up Appearances, and As Time Goes By…. I loved them all.

  I can’t wait to do this for real, I’d hinted. A Saturday night off is rare, but the two of us snuggled on the couch watching PBS would be my idea of a great one.

  Someday, Bart promised—or rather, lied.

  When May became June, our laughter turned to tears, as we cried together, miles apart, I presumed, as the news all over the Internet and TV was just too horrific to deal with alone.

  I wish you could hold me, Bart typed to me.

  You can’t even imagine how much I need that, I wrote back.

  We talked almost all day that Sunday, and when we ran out of words to express our grief, not wanting to part, we showed emotion in simpler ways.

  :(

  <3

  :(

  <3

  On and on, one after another down the chat window, maybe a hundred sad faces and just as many hearts. I believed his was as broken as mine.

  By July, we’d gotten rather bold. Partway through the month, Bart changed his profile picture to a sketch of two men kissing, one who looked very familiar, the other just the back of a head.

  It’s me and you, Noel.

  I see that. The rendering captured my heart. It’s amazing. Did you draw it?

  I dabble.

  He told me his dream job was creating political comic strips for adults.

  Something with a powerful message—a lesson—in a daily panel of satirical cartoons.

  He sent me a hand-drawn picture to download every day after that. Together, we traveled the world on a series of romantic dates. We swam the Mediterranean in Greece, lounged lazily in a gondola in Venice, had a picnic in front of Big Ben in London, played tennis in front of The Eiffel Tower in Paris, and sailed the sky in a hot air balloon over lions, tigers, elephants, and dinosaurs in Africa.

  Some of Bart’s artwork was silly—I’ve loved dinosaurs since I was little, he’d said. Some of it was sexy. In one, I floated nude with a friendly shark in a pool in the backyard.

  I’m already picturing us with a little house someday, Bart wrote. You and me and a shark named Shelby who lives in our aboveground pool, like the inflatable one I had as a boy and played with inside too, until my father decided it wasn’t a masculine enough toy for a boy.

  A few sketches were quite bold. I jacked off to several he’d drawn of his own naked body—from the neck down, of course—and three or four of he and I making love. More than once, I came for him on video.

  When can we do it for real? I asked, still breathing hard afterward one time.

  Soon. I promise.

  A declaration of love came in late in August. I no longer cared what he looked like. His words had charmed me. Bart, I think… No. I can’t say it.

  You can say anything to me, he wrote back. You should know that by now.

  I left him speechless at first. Bart… You told me I could tell you anything. I told you I love you. Say something… please.

  It took a while—a good forty seconds or more. I started to panic, but then they came.

  <3

  <3

  <3

  What I got back were hearts again. All the way down the page, one after another, they just kept scrolling and scrolling, heart, after heart, after heart, after heart until I couldn’t help but laugh. He loved me too! We decided to finally meet. We picked a place, a date and a time—the restaurant I worked at, Amber’s Bistro, August 16, at 7:00 p.m. Bart—or whatever his actual name was—never showed.

  By the time I got home—somewhere around midnight, because I just couldn’t give up—his Facebook page had disappeared. Even though that meant I could only see them in my head after that, the hearts continued to mock me, just like Bart, I’d bet. I’d been officially catfished.

  “Now, here I am, jumping right in again with Ethan,” I said to Red. “Hope springs eternal—or else stupidity does.”

  Red got up and put his head in my lap. I rubbed his silky ears.

  “You’re the love of my life. Aren’t you? Aren’t you?”

  Red’s tail thumped against the floor.

  Looking back at Ethan’s photo, I reconsidered and eased up on myself. “I’ll just keep it shallow. No feelings this time,” I said. “I don’t actually want Ethan—I just want his ass.”

  Red looked at me funny.

  “TMI?”

  Naturally, in the age of all things social media, I immediately mounted a search to see if I could find some pictures of Ethan’s ass. I scoured the rest of his Twitter feed and also his Instagram account. “Please have a link to Tumblr for nudes.”

  I had to settle for partials. Not so much settle, though, because they were stunning. Ethan was ripped. A plethora of underwear shots showed off most of his body, plus there was an entire album from Pride 2016 where, in nothing but a multicolor Speedo, he rode a frilly crepe paper float, posing provocatively in image after image with other revelers. It was practically a digital Kama Sutra, and I just had to comment, tagging it back to Twitter. Aren’t you underage for this kind of thing? I wrote.

  The reply came immediately. Ha-ha! So very clever. Never heard that one before. It arrived with a shit pile emoji and a spinning head.

  My heart seized. I knew damned well I sucked at flirting, but what had I said? I hadn’t meant to be a shit head! It pained me to think I’d somehow hurt the hunky stranger’s feelings. “Should I just say fuck it, or should I maybe apologize?” Red had no answer. He went back to his dog bed in the corner of the room.

  Hey, sorry if I said the wrong thing. You joked about being six. I was j/k.

  I sent a smiley face and a frowny one, the first to show I’d been teasing, the second to show how sad I was it had apparently gone wrong. I was also totally aware how much it said about my hunger for a soul mate as I approached the big 3-0, that after a single conversation, I was so distraught over losing a possible new connection. We had something in common—two things—me and Ethan. We were both gay, and we both hated our birthdays. That was something to build on… maybe.

  Oh. Ethan’s reply to that took around ten minutes. I had stressed the whole time. Oops. I thought it was a short joke, Noel. Lol.

  “Short joke? Is Ethan short?”

  Red didn’t even glance over. He was getting used to me talking to myself, and not all that interested anymore.

  As I looked over some of the Twitter stud’s pictures again, getting hard as I mentally removed what little he was wearing, it did seem as if Ethan had a little less stature than some of the other gay pride celebrants.

  Hmm. I never got past the dimples to notice the height.

  Was that offensive? Was it cute? Was it stupid? Was it needy? Too obvious? I took a deep breath, and then I hit Tweet.

  A third guy joined the conversation then. #MyBirthdaySucksBecause it’s St. Patrick’s Day. #MyNameSucksBecause it’s Hung. Try living up to that.

  LOL! I actually had.

  Hung’s Twitter pic was a beautiful sunset. His entire feed, as far back as I went, had not a single picture of a human being, only nature—sta
rry skies, trees, flowers, and animals, wild and domesticated. There were many shots of a big yellow dog lounging on a sofa, a window seat, in front of a fireplace, and on a bed beside a pair of socked feet.

  “Aha!” I said. “I bet those are Hung’s.” I typed: Judging by the size of these, I bet you live up to “Hung” just fine.

  I backspaced sixty-eight spaces. After Ethan and the short thing, I was pretty gun-shy when it came to my wit, or lack thereof.

  Even though my ancestry is rooted nowhere near Ireland, my birthday cakes had green frosting until I was old enough to bake my own, Hung wrote.

  Stinks, huh? I sent back. I ate my cake off Christmas china and got birthday gifts wrapped in snowman paper. More often than not, after about age thirteen, I heard “One or two things under the tree can be for your birthday. You pick.” I hate my birthday! I’d needed to send three tweets for all that—due to the character limit—and then a fourth and a fifth, because I kept on complaining. I could never have a party on the right day. Who’s going to come to a birthday party on Christmas? That whole week—before or after, really? No one, that’s who. I’m an adult, and I still get a little pissed about it.

  This Chinese guy born on the day of the Irish can sympathize.

  At least you get a birthday every year. :p Ethan got back in on the discussion then. I’m still only six.

  This is true. I smiled.

  I guess the name thing could be worse too, Hung said. Our next door neighbors in Pine Brook were Wangs.

  LMAO came from Ethan right away. It took me an extra half a second, then I laughed too, and kept on laughing through Hung’s next few tweets.

  I’m glad I wasn’t born into that family and then named Hung. I’m a Liu, which still causes its fair share of problems, especially on the phone. The girl at the pizza take-out once blew a whistle in my ear when I said “This is Hung Liu, do you charge more for extra sausage?”

  You’re funny. I was giggling like my three goddaughters when they watched Peppa Pig on Nick Jr.

  True story. I never say “I’m Hung” anymore. “My name is Hung.” That’s how I word it now, and that helps a little.