Thirsty by Joel Creasey

Author:Joel Creasey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Australia

I met Jeffery in Sydney during Mardi Gras, 2014. By pure chance I was in town for one night to perform in a stand-up show that my best mate Thomas was hosting.

Despite being gay since birth, where I shot out with jazz hands, a marching band and Celine Dion on backing vocals, I’d never been to Mardi Gras before and I was pretty excited. I’d flown in from Tasmania that morning and my original plan was to stay for the Friday night and go home the following day, thus missing the parade. I’m actually not great around crowds . . . unless I’m on a stage and I have their devoted attention, plus a moat and security guards between us, then I bloody love a crowd. At other events I get claustrophobic – and jealous that the crowd aren’t there for me.

That same day my first ‘shirtless spread’ was published in DNA, Australia’s biggest gay men’s magazine. The photo shoot that Carlos had me work towards ended up being released in the Mardi Gras edition. Well, this’ll be a great profile pic for Grindr, I thought. (Turns out it was – I’ve seen loads of people using it as their own!) Walking through Launceston Airport trying to find a copy of DNA magazine was pretty tricky. The publications there were more along the lines of Cheese Maker’s Monthly and The Abalone Almanac. But arriving in Sydney for Mardi Gras, I remember feeling great – I was feeling good about myself physically for once, I was happily single and my profile was on the rise. I even remember thinking, Enjoy being on your own for a while. I didn’t expect to fall head over heels in love that night.

In true laid-back Thomas style, he had inquired about booking the venue for his show several months before – and hadn’t followed it up any further, resulting in the venue telling him it was booked for another show when he went in to do the sound check a mere three hours before curtain up.

The solution to the venue being double booked was that Thomas negotiated with them to give us the front lounge area of the upstairs bar to perform in, as well as a free drink for anybody with a ticket and unlimited free drinks for all the artists. It resulted in us getting really quite drunk and inviting everybody back to Thomas’s Airbnb around 10 pm for a kick-on party.

I can’t remember the exact timing of events and who messaged who, but my friend Roberto (he’s a ‘Robert’ but somewhere along the line has Italian relatives so has given his name an upgrade) sent a text saying that he was going to meet us at the party and that he’d bring his friend Jeffery, who was in town from America doing his sketch show for Mardi Gras.

I didn’t know anything about Jeffery. Thomas, however, was really excited that he was coming because he had been a fan of Jeffery and his comedy sketch partner, Cole, for quite some time, having watched their work online.

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