GayLife.com is a romantic comedy about finding love and a career, set against the Internet boom of the turn of the millenium.
GayLife.com is a sexy comedy of manners the novel Jane Austen might have written-if she were a gay man living in Miami Beach at the turn of the millennium.
Brian Cohen is handsome, funny and smart, but he's never been able to get all those good characteristics together enough to score a great job or a great boyfriend. He's in his early thirties, living in the awesome gay candy store called South Beach, but he's a man without a plan.
Then his best friend Stella, a gorgeous model, hooks him up with a job helping launch a new gay web site, GayLife.com. Brian immediately develops a crush on his handsome, desirable boss, Nick Petrangelis-- but Nick's happily coupled with a supermodel of his own, Paavo, the Fabulous Finn.
Will the Internet finally connect Brian to the life he's always dreamed of? Will Nick join the line of hunky men parading through Brian's bedroom? GayLife.com is more than just a web site-it's a fast, sexy romp on a narrow island of sand, Art Deco buildings and neon nights.
Excerpt
I got to the second office and peeked around the door jamb. A blond guy, with broad shoulders and big hands, sat behind a cluttered desk, talking on the phone. His sandy blond hair hung down to the collar of his blue and white striped Brooks Brothers shirt.
Though he wasn't quite as handsome as Paavo, I was smitten. I like my men tall, on the husky side, and there's something about a button down collar that makes my heart flutter. I loved the sound of his voice, too, a British burr overlaid with New York directness. Though I was there for a job interview, not a date, I couldn't help wondering how his lips would taste against mine, if he was as sexy naked as he was with his clothes on.
The walls were plastered with posters from every space movie and television show ever screened, from Lost In Space and Star Wars to Plan 9 From Outer Space and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. One wall had been made into shelves that were packed with action figures and scale models, from the Enterprise to Obi Wan Kenobi, to a bunch of ships and aliens I didn't recognize.
Nick saw me in the doorway and motioned me in.
"I'm Brian Cohen," I said in a low voice. "Paavo gave me your card."
"Sure, sit down," he said. Into the phone he said, "No, I'm here. I'm listening."
As soon as he hung up the desk phone, his cellular phone bleeped. "GayLife.com," he said. "This is Nick." He looked at me and shrugged. "Sorry," he said, after he hung up. "It's kind of crazy around here. So, Paavo called and said you were looking for a job."
The desk phone rang again. "Sorry, with the receptionist out sick I've got to get this. If I let the programmer or the artist pick up, God knows what'll happen."
A tall dyke with spiked purple hair stalked in carrying a bunch of pieces of paper. While Nick was talking, she laid them out on the desk in front of him. "I'm in the middle of three things," he whispered to her.
"You're always in the middle of three things," she said. She looked at me. "If he's not on the phone, he's on the Internet or in a meeting or out of the office. How am I supposed to get this goddamned site designed if I don't get any feedback?"
I didn't know what to say, so I shrugged. I always find the very aggressive dykes a little scary. I mean, I know we're supposed to be one big rainbow family, but what do we have in common after all? She likes pussy, I like dick. I have a lot more mutual interests with straight women like Stella. At least we can compare notes on the men we've slept with.
With his eyes, Nick motioned me to take a look at the samples. There were five different designs. "They're for the background of the pages," the dyke said to me. "I don't suppose you know anything about the Internet."
"I know how to find my way to the naked pictures."
She glared at me. "He has to pick one so I can get on with the layout. I've got to know what kind of background I'm working with."
"Which one's your favorite?"
While she looked at them, I considered her. She wore an orange crop top that read "I Hate This Place and I'm Leaving Soon," khaki shorts, and combat boots, and she had three silver hoops in each ear. "I like this one the best," she said, pointing to a retro fifties design that could have been lifted from the Formica on my parents' kitchen cabinets. "But it's too aggressive. I guess we should go with one of these." She pointed to a couple that I had to agree were kind of boring.
"What about this one?" I pointed to a pattern of stylized symbols. Two male symbols, two female symbols, in a repeating design.
"Don't you think it's too strong?" she asked. "I mean, it might detract from the other pictures."
"Couldn't you fade it out?" I asked. "I have this friend who knows Photoshop, and he's always doing effects like that."
She considered. "Yeah, that might work." She looked at Nick. "You like that idea?"
He smiled and nodded.
"Good. Thank you. For Christ's sake." She gathered her samples and stalked to the door, where she stopped and turned. "I'm Leslie," she said. "Leslie Shulewitz."
"It's kind of a zoo around here," Nick said.
"I can see."
"You seem like you know how to handle yourself."
I shrugged.
"No, you're good," he said. "You worked in an office before?"
We had a couple of minutes together before the phone rang again. I ran through my work experience, Nick nodding and asking the occasional question. "I need an office manager," he said when I was finished. "Someone who can also be my executive assistant, who can pitch in and do whatever needs to be done. A kind of jack of all trades. You think you can do that?"
"I was an assistant stage manager, and a stage manager, in New York. It's just the kind of thing I did there."
The phone rang again. I stood up to go. "Listen, I can come back sometime when you're not busy."
"No, don't go," Nick said. He had a puppy dog look in his blue eyes that I fell for there and then. It was as if Paavo had never existed, nor had the idiot who had dumped me the month before. There was only Nick. A gorgeous man who was already taken.
"Get me a copy of your resume, will you? For the file. We'll talk about salary and benefits when things calm down, like after five, OK? There's a ton of stuff on the desk in the office next door," he said. "See what you can figure out." He picked up the phone. "GayLife.com, this is Nick."
I had a job. I looked up at the poster from Lost In Space, and even though I could imagine that robot was waving his metallic claws and saying "Danger, Will Robinson!", I went next door and got to work.
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