Gaynfluencer

First Chapter

I’ve always thought that airports are exciting places. The air’s filled with the promise of a new and exotic destination, the reward of coming back home after missing your beloved ones . . .

“Flight to London. To be updated.”

. . . the frustration for the totally unexpected delays.

I don’t get it. It’s a perfect sunny day, so why can’t they get it right?

It’s my first time in Belfast, and I have to say I like it here. The people are friendly, and the accent is, well, sexy. But I should be in the air now, not wandering through the airport.

I’m trying not to go on a downer and decide to distract myself with some harmless shopping. I see a W. H. Smith and can’t resist.

Will it be there?

I scan my eyes over eight, maybe ten books before I see it in one of the main exhibitors. The biography of the Latin super star and gay icon Paulina Dieckman. The book that I came here to promote. Paulina’s not only my favourite singer but also one of my best friends, which made it easier to write such a successful story.

I hang on to a sense of satisfaction about that. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, and now I’m a bestseller!

If I’m honest, the bright pink cover of the special edition reissue does look a bit cheesy, almost like the literary critics describe its contents.
When the first issue came out, with a picture of Paulina in classy black and white, I felt proud to hold the book. For the first few months, money came rolling in, and the copies were snatched from the shelves. Now things have slowed down, hence the tacky, pink glossy cover, as a marketing technique. At least it isn’t sparkling.

Paulina looks as marvellous as always, though. She might be approaching forty, but her olive skin is still flawless, and her dark intense eyes look at the camera as if daring you to question her beauty. Her thick, long chocolate hair waving by the wind machine is a nod to her trademark, the famous Paulography, a sexy dance move that makes her fans crazy at her concerts.

As well as having an alternative cover, this reedition features an extra interview with the protagonist, “Paulina Raw”, as if it were possible to go rawer after what we talk about in the book—full of lavishing details of all her public scandals with alcohol, parties, and much younger boyfriends.

I pick it up and flick through to the last page, just inside the back cover. There’s a small picture of me in the “About the author” section. Harry Wheeler. I smile as I close the book.

Tacky much if I buy it? Who cares? It’s the special edition copy. I can give it to any of my friends or to my mother. They already have the first version, but surely one of them will appreciate this one. Or I could send it to my father. Although, he wouldn’t care. He never does.

“Thirty pounds,” the cashier says.

I know, it is expensive, but . . . the glossy pink cover!

“No problem,” I reply, instantly cringing that I might sound flashy. Imagine if this guy knew it was my own book. I pay up without looking him in the eye again, then walk with it sticking out my jacket pocket.

On my way out, I sneakily put a copy of my book in the front row of the exhibitor, which is overstocked by Gaynfluencer, the current number one bestseller. It’s just a collection of “philosophies” mixed with photographs of Troy Ashton, a former model now turned into gayru. My book is way better.

I look at my watch, then up at the information screens. The flight was due to leave an hour ago.

I start to worry. The ceremony of those shitty awards starts in a few minutes. I need to be flying when it comes on.

I need to be.

The line at the customer service desk takes ages. When I eventually get to speak to the flustered, moody-looking woman, she huffs and puffs.

“It will be updated very soon, sir.”

“But can’t you tell me anything?”

“Please wait.”

Forcing a smile, I thank her and walk away too quickly.

In another attempt to distract myself, I head to the perfume section. I find Will’s cologne and put some on my wrist. I can’t wait to see him. I almost buy him a bottle, but he always wears the same. What about something new? There’s one bottle that’s looks cool; it’s shaped like a man’s body. “Brave Absolute”. It smells great, masculine and mysterious. And Will is absolutely brave, too. I’m committed. There’s a dark edition with a gorgeous black model on the box. He looks a bit like Will . . . no, Will is way more attractive.

I should also buy something for my best friends. Alistair doesn’t care much for souvenirs, but I buy him a bottle of Jameson’s anyway. He might be a savvy tech genius, but I know he likes a tipple of whiskey now and again. I love it, too. Alistair happens to be my flatmate, so hopefully we can enjoy it together. Win-win!

Matteo, on the other hand, loves surprises. I feel a pang of guilt as I realise I haven’t called him in over a week. For him, something Irish. I pick up a glass with a leprechaun on it. It’s clichéd, sure, but it is funny. I’ll also get him a box of fudge, just in case he doesn’t hit it off with the leprechaun.

Buying the fudge makes me realise how hungry I am. I consider getting myself some fudge, too, then spot my favourite crisps near the till. Bagga Cheesy. The face of the drag queen of the same name decorates the yellow bag. Nowadays, drag queens sell everything. I grab two packs. The cheese flavour is majestic. I’m grinning with excitement as I hand over the cash.

I join a bench filled with people who are waiting, most of them looking upset. I manage to get a relatively quiet seat. Gosh, I miss the VIP waiting lounges. The publishers used to treat me to first class, but since the sales went down, so did what they were willing to spend on travel expenses.

A vibration in my pocket jolts me out of my thoughts. I’ve been trying to avoid checking my phone for the last couple of hours, but what if it’s something important? I sent Will a message telling him the flight got delayed and he hasn’t answered yet, so it’s probably him.

It’s a notification from Instagram; a lady from the book signing tagged me. That’s new. Sure, she also tagged Paulina and her many fan pages, even the bootleg ones . . . but she tagged me, too. How cute. Although, I look awful. My belly! I gag at the sight of it hanging under my shirt. Couldn’t she have chosen a better picture? The woman looks great, on the other hand. People can be so thoughtless.

No news of my flight yet. Aargh.

The show starts now. I mustn’t think about it. I mustn’t. Besides, it’s just a joke award ceremony, taken seriously by nobody. I put my phone back in my jacket pocket, next to the book, and open my first pack of Bagga Cheesy. The instant rush of salt against my taste buds calms me down immediately. Hmm, that’s good. It’s probably all synthetic flavour, but I don’t mind.

The flight was deliberately timed so that I wouldn’t be tempted to watch the ceremony, but here I am, stuck at the airport. I sit back in my seat and instinctively pull my phone out. Instagram again. I give it a quick check with one-and-a-half eyes closed to make sure there’s nothing about the awards on my feed. It’s safe.

I keep scrolling and see a post about Troy Ashton. Gosh, this guy is everywhere. The press calls him the Gaynfluencer, like the title of his book, and every time he throws his crazy ideas, he makes it in the news. He’s sharing the cover of a magazine that announces him as one of the 30 most influential under 30. I sigh—It’s too late for me to get on that list . . . but maybe 35 under 35? ­The headline under the picture says, “I think that gay people have more functional brain cells than the rest”. Wow. I guess Troy is just that extra to gain more exposure. He’s on five million followers and gives workshops and interviews about gay empowerment all over the place. But I just think he’s a pinkwasher and an opportunist. I click unfollow.

I put my phone away again. Social media is torture. Everyone looks like they have perfect lives, great careers, amazing relationships . . . but they probably don’t. They can’t, can they?

The show will be in full swing by now. My leg is anxiously bouncing and making noises with the bag, so some people here are staring at me.

The waiting is almost unbearable, so I start checking my messages compulsively. Nothing from Will. He must be very busy. Or maybe he wants to surprise me at the London airport! He told me he had to work today, but what if that was just his cover and he’s waiting for me with a bouquet of flowers? It’s a well-known fact that phone lines are very bad at airports, so maybe my message didn’t go through. And probably, most certainty, he hasn’t checked the flight’s information to see my flight is delayed. He must be so excited to see me!

I press the call button. Videocall. After a few tones, Will answers.

“Hi Will!” I say with a huge smile. Seeing his pretty face always has this effect on me. Even with white stripes of paint crossed over his cheeks.

“Harry, are you OK?”

“Sure . . . but are you OK?” I ask, gesturing to my own cheeks.

He rubs his face. “Oh, this, yeah, all good. Sorry, it’s kind of a mess here.”

He puts his face away from the camera, and I don’t see the airport, but what looks like the house he’s renovating. There are workers walking around, stairs, and a concrete mixer.

“Sure, don’t worry,” I say, still smiling. “I just wanted to say hello before catching my flight.”

“I thought you should have landed already?”

“It got delayed. I sent you a text.”

“Sorry, babe, I couldn’t check my phone, it’s very busy over here—”

The rumble is so loud that some of the people around me turn their heads to look at my phone.

Will makes a painful face. “Sorry, Harry. I have to go.”

“Of course, Will. Good luck! I love you,” I say, but he’s already gone.

I look at his picture on the screen with a sinking feeling in my stomach. Soft big black eyes, beautiful juicy lips, dimples for days. OK, so Will’s not at the airport, but I’ll see him tonight. I’m proud of my man, though. He’s such a hard worker.

Now what? I look back up at the monitors. Still no announcement.

Fine. I could look, just for fun, couldn’t I? I mean, what are the chances I’ll win? One in three? It seems like a reasonable number.

I search for the official award site. I’ve known about them for years and always felt sorry for the nominees. Now, I’m one of them. When my publisher told me, he tried to sell the news as good news.

“It’s just a joke, don’t take it seriously. Plus, it’s great publicity!”

But it didn’t feel light. I was aware, before I was even told about my nomination, how last year’s winner was Forty Shades of Blue, a spin-off about a girl who was a student by day, dominatrix for influential CEOs by night. It was full of under-researched BSDM and bad dialogue.

Besides, the fact that they’ve nominated Paulina’s biography for the “Worst Fiction Book of the Year Award” doesn’t even make sense. It’s not fiction! They think they’re being funny.

Bastards.

OK, we might have exaggerated some aspects in Paulina’s life to make it more dramatic and impactful, but we didn’t “cross the barriers of what is possible in real life by turning a pop star’s life full of scandals into the cheesiest and over-sugar story of all times.” Gross.

It feels like, even after all the successes, I’m still receiving rejection emails for my writing like I did at the beginning of my career. Why is it so difficult to have both sales and recognition? I feel so triggered.

The site loads, and the logo of what looks like a raisin on a small pedestal of gold appears. The Goji Award, as in goji berry, infamously known as the “The Gojees: Awards to Mediocre Literature.”

There’s a live stream on the site. I was expecting a feed of tweets or something, not a video. It’s probably low-res, recorded with a phone or similar. I click on it, and my heart drops. The ceremony is in a luxurious theatre, quite jaw-dropping, and the video is in full HD. Dragging writers’ reputations through the mud seems to be profitable.

I look up at the flight updates, ignoring my watering eyes. Nothing. I swear I will ask the flight company for compensation. I consider asking the woman at the desk again, but she glares at me as if to say, “you better not,” as I catch her eye. I look down at the video in my hand. I’m sweating like a dog.

Finally, there it comes. There’s a teaser for the award I’m nominated for. I see a quick video of my co-nominees: a book about the ball culture in New York in the 80s but with obese people as protagonists called AdiPose, and the bestselling dystopian The Manservant’s Fable, about a world in which men are slaved and used as reproduction machines by a totalitarian womenarchy.

Surely Paulina’s biography isn’t worse than either of those?

Several jokes pass, and it’s time for them to announce the “winner” in my category. I look up anxiously at the flights, then put a handful of crisps into my mouth at once. I crunch loudly, then see a young, stylish girl staring at me. I hope she isn’t watching the awards. She’s certainly not the target audience. I pull the flap of my denim jacket over the book to conceal it, just in case.

The sentence “And the winner is . . .” seems to take an eternity.

Relief pours through me at what follows: “AdiPose!”

Yes!

All is good. I can relax now. A nomination wasn’t that bad. At least I didn’t win. Nobody knows I was nominated. I haven’t even told Will.

I sit back and continue watching the ceremony. It’s funny, after all. Just a tiny anecdote to tell my friends.

I watch the next couple of awards, then half-listen as they tease out some more. There are a few hosts who are truly witty, and the introductory videos of the nominees are surprisingly well edited. Something grabs my attention, though, and not in a pleasant way. After teasers for the “Fatal Attraction” award for the worst romance and the “Silence of the Crickets” for the worst crime fiction, they introduce a new award.

“Making its debut this year, the ‘Special Queer Award: Go back to the closet’. The worst literary contribution to the LGBTQ+ world.”

My heart begins to pound. This is the first I’m hearing about it. I certainly haven’t been told anything about being nominated for it, but something tells me I might have been. I think about going back into the site and looking at the nominees, but I take deep breaths instead.

I eat more crisps frantically. I’ve nearly finished the second bag now. Crumbs are everywhere.

“And we will give this award after a break!”

A break? Do they have commercials also? Shame on the advertisers.

As though it were deliberately timed, the flight gets announced. We’re all told to go to the gate.

As I pull my suitcase along, I can’t stop watching the phone. I need to know if I’ve been nominated. I’m arguing with myself about whether I would have been. It would be just my luck, but they did say “queer” award. Although Paulina is a gay icon, she isn’t gay. But I am a gay writer. Is that enough? What are the criteria for a queer award?

I’m queuing to board, my eyes glued to my phone screen, headphones in. Sour-faced woman is back, talking to me. I remove my headphones.

“Sir, the hand luggage can’t be in the cabin. It has to go in the aircraft hold.”

“OK,” I say, distracted. She puts a badge on the suitcase. I’m fully focused on my phone. They start giving more awards. AdiPose “wins” another one: worst plot twist. I feel sorry for the author, but as they said while recapping the nominees, to make a thin protagonist wear a fake fat suit just to win a dancing competition for overweight people . . . far too much.

I step onto the delayed plane surrounded by flustered people and sit back in my assigned seat—at least they booked me a window seat.

Come on, come on, give the bloody queer award already! I can’t wait another hour or more until I get off the plane.

It’s all my publisher’s fault. He pushed me to make the book cheesier and cheesier, more scandalous. Particularly the part in which Paulina was “visited” by the Virgen de Chiquinquirá in her dreams to reveal to her she would be a star. That scene was way too over-the-top. I knew it.

Thinking of cheese makes me want more crisps. Damn it!

My foot taps relentlessly on the floor, and my fingers grip my phone far too tightly. I look up and there she is. The woman from customer service is now the flight assistant as well. It looks like the company is really skimping on staff. She’s looking at me strangely, but I ignore her and stare back at my phone. The presenter keeps talking, and he says something I really don’t want to hear. They’re leaving the new award until last. More commercials first.

“No!” I moan aloud, attracting more stares.

I buckle my seatbelt. A man with grey hair sits beside me with a stormy expression. The same expression nearly everyone on this flight has.

The attendants are running through the security instructions.

Finally. The “Special Queer Award”.

“Sir, please turn your phone off. We are about to take off,” the unkind flight attendant says.

“Oh, sure, sorry.” I smile and hide my phone behind my jacket. When she walks away, I continue to watch it. The man next to me glares at me, his huge, stern brow almost quivering with his anger.

“The nominees are: Taylor Silly! I mean . . . Tailor Sylvie . . . for AdiPose . . .”

Laughs in the audience.

I hear the engine starting. The “don’t move from your seat” lights are on.

Come on, please, don’t let it be me, please.

“. . . Frank de Moor, for Lost and Found in the Dark Room . . .”

Phew, just one more, it can’t be m. . .

“. . . Harry Wheeler, for The South London Chica: Paulina’s Official Biography!”

“Shit!” I say aloud again. The man next to me clears his throat in annoyance.

OK, think. There’s no way I can lose against Taylor, is there? AdiPose has already won almost all the awards it was nominated for. It’s on a roll. Taylor has to “win”, surely?

The flight attendant is walking, almost running, in my direction, fists clenched against both sides of her body. I swear I can see steam coming out of her nostrils.

“Sir! Please, your phone!” Her lips are firmly pressed, and I feel that her eyes would exterminate me if they could.

“It’s in flight mode,” I lie.

“No, it’s not,” the grumpy man next to me says. Who asked him? “He’s watching videos.” He says it as if I am planning a murder.

“Oh! What they glued this enveloped with? Haha . . .” the host says.

“Sir, I am afraid you need to switch it off at once!” The flight attendant is practically yelling at me at this point.

I grip onto my phone as she reaches down to grab it.

“And the winner is . . .”

Crap.

“Harry Wheeler, for caricaturing a gay icon such as Paulina in his unrealistic—cheap telenovela-like book!”

There’s laughter from the audience. The loudest one so far.

“Harry is not here . . . he is . . . somewhere. We hope not writing his new novel!”

“Sir. Please!” The woman is now furious, leaning over the grumpy man beside me to try to reach me. “Your phone, or I will have to ask you to leave the aircraft!”

“We’ll send him his Gojee per post, or we’ll throw the paper in the bin, together with his book.”

The laughter is now hysterical.

“Sir!”

The woman stretches her arm over the man and grabs at my phone.

“What the . . . what are you doing?”

“No phones, I said!” She looks out of control, her eyes bloodshot and crazed, pressing my hand aggressively.

Her grip’s surprisingly strong. It looks like she’s been trained in the army or something. Finally, she manages to take the phone away from me. Is she allowed to do that?

“No phones! It will be returned to you after the flight,” she says, satisfied, and turns back on her heels to go back to the front of the plane, her head held high. As she sashays, other passengers applaud her, especially the man sitting next to me, who smiles smugly. Gosh.

I feel my face burning. I’m seething. “Worst Literary Contribution”. A Gojee! How humiliating. I’ll never live it down.

Desperately, I pull my own book from my pocket, just to hide it inside. I don’t feel like reading it ever again, though.