I should have read their website more carefully.

“Who is this group you're going to talk to?” Roberta asked the night before I left.

“I don't know. It's some writer's group down in Lake Elsinore .” I slipped under the covers next to her.

“Where's that?” She flipped the TV channels from her spot in the bed. The sound from each new channel stuttered before she changed it again.

“I don't know. I made a Yahoo! map. It's down south somewhere. And they said they'd buy my lunch.” I had a self-published book to push, and I planned to give a talk on the craft of writing.

“How did they find you, anyway?” Roberta said, her voice languid and sleepy.

I explained to her again how I had sent a message to a local bookstore, and the bookstore forwarded my information to the writer's group. “That's great, baby,” she whispered, “Can you turn out the light?” She hit the power button on the remote control and dropped it on the floor by the bed.

Boxes of books, my easel for my presentation, my credit card imprinter, and my promotional flyers filled my trunk. I'm a one man company, in charge of all aspects of book creation and sales. The dream is that one of these books will free me from the day-job.

It was a 5-hour drive, but I made it in 6, stopping at every Starbucks and one Taco Bell. My throat burned from too many cigarettes. I had to watch it—I did have to talk tomorrow.

I pulled into the Double Tree about 3:00 in the afternoon and grabbed my laptop and overnight bag from my crowded trunk.

“I've got you down for one night,” the clerk said. Her smile reminded me of being single. “Did you want to keep it on the same credit card?”

“Excuse me?” The little dimple in her smooth olive cheek was so kissable.

“I said did you want to pay with the same credit card you reserved the room with?”

“Oh yeah…Yeah, yeah, fine.”

She nodded and punched some keys on her computer. “I have you down for a king-size bed and a non-smoking room.”

“Sure.” I signed a couple slips of paper and shoved my copies in my pocket.

“Room 116. Through the door, and down the hall.” She pointed over my shoulder.

Roberta answered on the third ring. “Hey, honey,” I said.

“Hey! How was the drive?”

“Fine, and the hotel is pretty cool too.” I lay on the bed with the phone pressed to my ear. “Not much in this town though—at least not that I've seen yet.”

“I'm sure the locals know where to go,” she said.

“Yeah. I'm supposed to call one of the guys from this writer's group, and we're supposed to meet for dinner tonight. Him and some other guy.”

“You're thinking of not calling, aren't you?” She knew me well.

“I don't know…I don't know these people. It was kind of odd the way the whole thing was set up. I've never actually talked to any of them in person. You know…”

“I know, but they are expecting you to call. How are you gonna explain to them tomorrow when it's time for your talk that…”

“That I got in later than expected. That I didn't want to call past 11.”

“Call them.”

“But I'm talking to you.” I smiled, hoping my stupid charm would distract her.

“Call them.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Dan. Hang up and call them.”

I sighed. “Okay.”

We hung up, and I lay on the bed. She'd never know if I didn't call. A detailed, but not overstated, tale of dinner at a nice restaurant whose name I don't remember and a couple anecdotes about the two men would work. She'd get to hear about my night out, and I'd get to have my night in.

I linked my fingers between the back of my head and the overstuffed pillow and stared at the ceiling. The TV remote sat on the bedside table just out of reach. The red numbers on the digital clock said 4:42 . There was a discussed time to call by; was it 5:30 ?

Calling someone on the phone was not this big of a deal, was it? Setting the alarm on my cell for 5:25 , I closed my eyes.

Being scared awake should have clued me in. The very nature of the alarm—it forces you to do what is unnatural. You can't push the bounds of nature without consequence.

I took a leak and used the bathroom light and mirror to wake myself. Now I had a phone call to make, but the phone rang.

“Hello?” My voice scratched more than I wanted.

“Dan?”

“Yeah.” I moved the phone from my face and cleared my throat.

“This is Ted Stevens from Elsinore 's Writers.”

“Oh hey! I was just gonna call you.”

“Well, I beat you to it. How was the ride in?”

“Just fine thanks. Took 5 hours or something. It was cool.”

“Fabulous. Well, Ray and I would like to take you out and show you the great sites of Lake Elsinore .” He laughed. “Are you up for that?”

“Sure.”

“Super. We'll meet you at your hotel. Double Tree, right?”

“Yeah.” I almost said my room number, but he cut me off.

“Great. Well, we'll give you a call when we get to the hotel, okay? 30 minutes?”

“That'll be fine.”

So that was it—unless I ignored my cell for the rest of the night or turned it off, I'd be dining and hanging out with a couple strangers. I could hear Roberta's voice nagging me to go.

Better to be ready than not, so I cleaned myself up for a night out. I swiped the steam off the mirror, stuck a small ball of toilet paper on the shaving nick I gave myself, and rolled my eyes. The cell sat on the bathroom counter like an oversized fly.

I sprayed my chest with cologne and smirked for the mirror. I knew I should practice smiling so I'd make a good guest. Even through the foggy mirror, the smiles looked fake. “When I write about this,” I said, “I'll make the smile better.”

The cell phone buzzed alive and jittered across the counter before erupting into a ring.

“Dan!” The voice from earlier said my name like an old friend.

“Yeah. How's it goin'?”

“Good thanks. Me and Ray are in the lobby.”

“Oh okay. I'll be there in a few minutes.”

It would have been just as easy to leave the room and sneak out the back way to my car and a private dinner.

Roberta would never forgive me.

Could I live with myself? I paced the floor.

“You came this far,” I told the mirror in the bathroom. The reflection had his hands placed firmly on the counter, insisting I meet my responsibility. With a determined look, he stared me down, and I dropped my eyes first.

I sighed, shoved the room's keycard into my back pocket, and left the light on for myself.

In the lobby, two men sat in chairs near the entrance and stood when I got near them.

“Dan?” One of them said. He had glasses with fiber-optic thin rims.

“Yes.” I offered my hand. He took it in both of his, making me flinch.

“Whoa,” he said, removing his hand, “little tense from the road still?”

“Maybe. Yeah. I don't know.”

“We'll take care of that tonight. I'm Ray.” The other man offered his hand and took mine in a firm grip. “This is Ted.”

Ted placed his fingertips on his chest, “Of course, yes. I'm Ted. Where are my manners?”

“You have none,” Ray said.

I laughed. Ted smirked. Ray smiled.

Ted pushed his glasses up his nose and said, “Should we get going then? We have a couple places in mind we'd like to take you. Are you vegetarian or anything?”

“No, not really. I'll eat just about whatever.”

“Great. That keeps it simple,” Ray said.

“Absolutely,” Ted said, “You're a fabulous guest already.”

They led me through the hotel door. I thought of being a child and being told never to get in a car with strangers.

“You can take shotgun,” Ted said as we got near Ray's black Exterra.

“No, that's fine.”

“I insist,” Ted said.

Without another word, I took the seat next to Ray, and we left the parking lot. After a couple turns, we were on a wide street lined with the usual franchises and their neon.

They made small talk with me, and I answered. My heart beat against my ribs. I heard my voice and was consoled to discover the inflections were appropriate because some sort of a mental wall stood between me and this conversation. I'd had problems with this filter before, but I cursed it for clogging now when I was trying to sell books.

“Are you in a writer's group back home?”

“No.” That was too short. Afraid they'd take it as a slight against people that had a writer's group, I added, “I don't even know if there is one up there.”

“I tell you, it's really made a difference in my writing,” Ted said, “Being able to bounce rough drafts off of other writers and getting their honest…” he slapped Ray on the shoulder, “sometimes too honest feedback is invaluable.”

“Hmm,” I said, hoping it was the sort of grunt that indicated he made a good point. No one sees my rough drafts. The idea of it made me cringe.

“Plus it's a good way to hook up,” Ray said.

“Raymond!” Ted set his hand on my shoulder from the backseat, “Ignore him Dan. He's a pig.”

“I mean, you know, meet people with like minds.” Ray laughed.

We turned off the main road and passed a few older buildings with smaller storefronts. At the end of the block, Ray turned left into a driveway, and the car bumped and scraped bottom.

A warehouse sat at the back corner of the lot. A green neon sign carved out the name Cherry Fresh on the otherwise plain, cement-block building.

“This is a cool place,” Ray said as he found a place to park.

Ted's hand rested on my shoulder. “Hope you like this. You're uhm…you're open to things right?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean like…Did Janet Jackson's boob at that football game put you in a tizzy?”

Tizzy? I laughed. “No, I hardly gave it a thought until the press and preachers made it huge.”

“He'll be fine,” Ray said as he cut the engine and undid his seatbelt.

“I just wanted to be sure,” Ted said.

“Let's go,” Ray said. He opened his door, breaking the dusk with the car's dome light. “A lot of the other guys from the group are supposed to be here too.”

I kept brushing my cell phone clipped to my belt as we crossed the parking lot. I should have called Roberta. We had an unspoken rule about these kinds of places; we always gave the other a heads up. But calling my wife for what would look like permission in front of these guys? No. I could hang inside for a while and then sneak away to call.

“We got your cover for you.” Ray traded $20 for a hand stamp for each of us. “We'll set you up with a couple drinks too.”

“You guys don't have to do that.” We passed under the black curtain, and I shouted over the music into Ray's ear.

He cupped his hands around my ear and shouted something about not worrying about it because the writer's club would pick up the whole evening.

We found a table near the wooden rail that surrounded a square dance floor. Robotic lights flashed the beat of the thumping club music.

The waiter came and took our drink orders. Ted got an appletini, Ray had a Jack and Coke, and I took a Heineken.

“You know they say if you can peel the Heineken label off the bottle without ripping it,” Ted shouted into my ear, “that you're sexually frustrated.”

“I don't have to peel a label to know that,” I said.

Ted laughed and put his hand on my shoulder.

The drinks came and Ray opened a tab. Halfway through my second beer, I went to the head. The women's restroom had a piece of paper over the “wo” so the sign said men. Guys streamed in and out of both restrooms.

“The show's starting,” Ted said when I got back to the table.

The DJ pumped the volume up just below the pain threshold, and a man stepped out of the dark onto the square dance floor. In the flashing lights, I couldn't tell for sure, but I think he was dressed in a uniform.

The bass line of the music pushed him around the floor and he writhed in ways I would have thought impossible. “This is some sort of circus act…like a contortionist,” but I knew I was just wishing even before he started taking off his clothes.

As his shirt came off, men pushed and crowded all around the wooden rail that corralled the dancer. Ted and Ray stood and waved bills at him. I stayed in my seat. Hands pushed against my shoulder to propel their owners deeper into the mix. Just to the right of us, a dozen guys smashed together in a chaotic moment, fighting for a piece of the man's discarded clothing. The winner clutched it and rolled into a ball to escape.

Ted cupped his hand around my arm and pulled me to my feet. It sounded like he told me not to be shy, but I'll never know for sure. It's bad marketing to offend your hosts, so I bobbed along to the music and watched the dancer twist his muscles and collect money and screams from the sweaty men. Ray high fived me after the dancer kissed him and rubbed his chest for $10.

After a quick shout in each other's ears, Ray and Ted moved aside and pushed me to the rail. One of them patted me on the back. No matter how hard I concentrated, I couldn't turn invisible, nor could I make the floor open and swallow me. With the crowd tight against my back, I bellied up to the wooden rail—a thin border between me and the dancer, who writhed, flexed, and pumped his hips to the men across from me. But he'd be back.

He made his way around the rim of the floor collecting screams, gropes, and money. As a kid, I didn't want any part of the high dive at the local pool, but my friends loved it, so I climbed to the top with them. My stomach knotted now the same as it did then. Knowing you don't belong and forcing a smile can do your head in as fast as a car crash.

The Heineken fought its way up my throat as the dancer got closer. I could see the oil and sweat glimmering on his chest as he wrapped his arms around a customer's neck.

He stood in front of me; his eyes darting from face to face in the frantic crowd. An arm reached over my shoulder to the dancer, holding money. The dancer took the money and I felt a hand pat me twice on the shoulder. Moving in closer than a wife, the dancer reached for my hands and pulled me toward him.

The men nearest me erupted into screams.

I shook my head no and expected blood to burst from my eyes. Hands pushed me from behind and clapped my shoulders while the music pumped an endless loop of thumping bass.

His hands, colder than I expected, pulled on mine again. If I were any shyer, my hosts may have detected a problem, so I leaned forward until our faces touched. He said something in my ear.

“What?” I said.

“Climb over the rail,” he said, pulling on my hands again. He leaned back, snake like, and pulled me toward the rail. People helped me over the rail, and then I stood on the dance floor—frozen in a fear bubble.

The dancer led me to a chair that someone placed in the middle of the floor. He sat me down. Cheering competed with the thumping loop, and the dancer moved for me in ways no one should.

The boxing ring of the dance floor had four identical sides, and I couldn't tell from which one I came.

The large hand wrapped itself around the back of my neck. His knee fit into the spot where my lap met my torso. The other leg stood firm on the floor, and his hips pumped inches from my face to the punching bass.

If I wasn't the gay writer Ted and Ray mistook me for, they'd cancel my talk. A cancelled talk would mean no sales and a wasted weekend. I had to like this. Having a girl around to appear straight was a “beard,” so what was this?

The dancer straddled me and never lost the beat. The crowd went wild as jealous of me as I was of them.

I had never had my face this close to my own crotch much less another man's.

He rubbed his hands down my chest. I closed my eyes and pictured Salma Hayek. I let my neck drop backward in what would appear as ecstasy but felt more like waiting for the guillotine to drop.

The guys helped me back over the rail.

“How was that?” Ted said with his arm around my shoulder tight.

I managed a smile and a nod.

He kissed me on the cheek.

Filling myself with beer was the only option. I was in Rome and that's what the Romans would have done.

The next day with a thickened head and compromised balance, I gave my presentation to the writer's group. They all cheered at my antics from the night before, as reported by Ted and Ray.

“And the man can drink.” Ray said with an electric smile.

I grinned at the group's laughter and stared at the floor.

I don't know how the presentation went. The hangover clouds wouldn't allow me to monitor myself. The only questions I got were about the stripper and how many lap dances I remembered and what my favorite drink was.

“The one in front of me,” I said, “Nah, I'm kidding. My favorite drink is the next one.”

The presentation didn't matter. What I said didn't matter. In a single night, most of which I didn't remember, I had made a drunken, gay, literary icon of myself. The books sold and sold that day.

“How did they even think you were gay in the first place?” Roberta sat across the room from me, stifling her giggles. I propped my exhausted body on the pillows of the couch. Water boiled for tea in the kitchen.

“I have no idea. And it's not like I could ask after all of that.”

“C'mon. You can't possibly believe that selling so many books was just because they think you're gay. Your stories had to have sounded interesting.”

“None of their questions had to do with writing.” I said.

“If you met Hemingway, would you bother with writing questions or would you ask about Africa ? Cuba ? Fishing? Spain ? All the women? Hollywood in those days?”

“Writing,” I said.

“You're just saying that. All you did, really, is create a persona that is bigger than yourself in order to sell something. People do it all the time. It creates hype and people spend money.”

“I was unreal,” I said. A headache brewed. I pressed my fingers to my temples.

“You gave them what they wanted.”

“Is there no line you shouldn't cross for success?” I said.

“You tell me,” Roberta said, “I'm going to pour the tea.” She went to the kitchen. Cups rattled around.

After that, the blinking cursor on the blank screen was impenetrable; I never wrote another word for publication.