Thread by @ghweldon

Celebrating Tolkien's birthday by walking from DC to Denver to return some jewelry.

1 month in, 500 miles trudged. Awoke in hidden vale of Dollywood -- have slipped in and out of consciousness since that bad business at the Weathertop bar in Lynchburg.

Hot dude mops my brow. "Are you ... an elf-friend?" he asks.

"Oh gurl we don't call ourselves that anymore."

"What happened to you, darlin'?" he asks, in the Common Speech, though inflected with the soothing drawl of his people.

"I think someone spiked my drink," I say. "Back in Lynchburg. At Weathertop."

"Ah know that place," he says. "We call it Weathered Tops." Giggles.

"What was it y'all was drinking?" he asks.

"I don't remember," I say, "Some thick black ... liqueur, I think? Felt like a knife to the chest."

His expression darkens. "We know that drink." A shaft of golden light strikes his perfect cheekbones; he whispers:

"A Morgul Blade."

"What's your name, fair one?" I ask.

"Glorfindel," he says.

"Not your drag name, bitch," I say.

"Oh. Sorry. Doug. It's Doug."

"Where are my friends, handsome Doug?"

"They attend the Council of Elrond."

"What's the Council of Elrond?"

"EDM festival. Been going on for days."

"Who's that dude up there on the speakers?" I ask. "The one who keeps stroking his ears and face and chest and -- oh."

"That there's Elrond. He is powerful and wise. Um..."

"... When he's not tripping balls?"

"When he's not tripping balls, yes."

(Next morning)

“You must take .... the nipple ring ... back to Denver,” says a haggard EIrond, between long pulls of bottled water.

“No, yeah, I know. That’s what I’m doing.”

“It must be returned,” he says, “to the muscle bear who crafted it.”

“Already on it.”

“His name..”

“I know what his name is already,” I say. “This is what you consider sage counsel? Telling me to do what I’m already doing?”

“HIS NAME...” says Elrond.

“Ok fine whatever.”

“...IS ...”

“Really milking this gurl”

“... JARED.”

“Be wary,” says Elrond. “The muscle bear has his spies watching the roads.”

“His spies?”

“Cops, mostly. And leathermen. Leathermen cops. Guys in his cycling club. Hunny it’s a whole thing.”

“So what should-“

“You must travel ... through the mines ... of Chattanooga.”

We leave Dollywood and make it through the mines, though the horny old bastard whose whole idea this trip was ditches us for a big dude with a whip midway through. Never knew him to be into BDSM, but people surprise you.

Got chased out of there by some real trolls.

We arrive in the haven of Iowa City, where we are greeted by the Queen of its Workshop. She is wise and beautiful and speaks in whole paragraphs, and she gives me a gift.

It’s her latest book of essays, and don’t get me wrong I LIKE her non-fiction though it gets a bit Jesus-y

I mean sure her later fiction is all about the struggle of faith, but I don’t mind that so much because the prose is so gorgeous and the characters are richly anyway never mind not important.

She asks to see the nipple ring. It freaks her out a bit at first - too sexy? Too gay?

But then she settles down a bit and smiles. “Put it away, cookie,” she says, strokes her long luxurious hair, and bids us safe travels.

“If you ever need me ...,” she says.

“Oh I carry your first book with me everywhere,” I say.

“It was a good one,” she says. “The movie...”

“The movie was FINE,” I say.

She winkles her nose and makes a “so-so” hand gesture.

“Come on,” I say, “Christine Lahti, can’t go wrong there.”

“No, yes, sure,” she says.

We’re two days past Iowa City - in some Des Moines exurb - when this one burly bear traveling with us catches me fondling the nipple ring.

“Ooh,” he says, “where’d you get THAT?”

“Come on. Don’t make me say it.”

“Say it!” he says.

I sigh. “I got it,” I say, “at Jared’s.”

But then two of the gays traveling with us get a sext from some decrepit sugar daddy in Dallas, and flake. Three others go chasing after them. And one - the beardy bear - decides to stay where he is and shoot up.

So I’m like screw this drama; my hometown girl and I take off.

Somewhere in Nebraska we get lost. Picked up by a trucker - a methy old queen who keeps saying he knew my uncle (don’t do drugs kids) - and says he can drive us to Denver.

He talks to himself; uses the royal we when he does it, which even I think is a bit much, Miss Thing.

The bastard set us up! Drops us off at his friend’s place - some big old nasty queen who’s SUPER-goth. She’s got those Party City fake spider-webs up - you know the ones that look like you’ve gutted a sweater and hung its remains up as a grim warning to other knitwear? Those.

The bitch is so boring - imagine if Sharon Needles were basic - that I fall asleep, but my gurl Sami (she named herself after DOUL’s Sami Brady, because names have POWER henny and we stan Allison Sweeney, legend) rescues me.

We can’t parade through the streets of Denver in these fabulous outfits without being clocked by Jared’s spies, so we stop into The Gap of Rohan for some normcore boring-ass like JEANS and CARDIGANS and whatnot so we can pass unobserved.

It’s almost as if we’re wearing , I dunno, cloaks that ... hide our appearance somehow? If that makes any sense at all?

Anyway. It’s hot as balls in Denver, and it keeps getting hotter and hotter as we approach the Jared Galleria Of Jewelry on W. Colfax, near the Marshall’s.

Of course the proximity to like that many poly-blends and like I don’t know atop-the-toilet knick-knacks or whatever sucks the life out of me - but Sami picks me up and almost literally carries me into the Jared’s.

And surprise whose in there but that goddamn old trucker queen.

“Give us the nipple ring,” he says.

That first-person plural again. Bitch. “I’m sorry do you WORK here?” I say. “And can you process a return?”

“We can,” he says. Rasps, technically.

“I’ll only deal with Jared,” I say. “With he who smelt it. Smelted it. You know what I mean.”

Jared steps out from the back.

“Can I help ...” he says, and upon seeing my Spin-Cycle-sculpted bod again, after so many years, chokes out: “....YOU?”

I can feel his eye blazing into me. (His left one.) (He lost the right one when it got poked by my ... long story never mind.)

“Take it back,” I say, pressing the nipple ring into his outstretched palm, which runs so hot (it’s the roids, does that) that for a second I imagine it a tiny lake of burning lava.

“And give it to HIM,” I say, indicating methy trucker queen. “He had it before me, after all.”

And then - sorry, I can’t help myself, I’m just swept up in the moment, usually I’d never do anything so rude - but I turn to that old decrepit trucker queen...

And I give her the finger.

Once again, for the folks in the back?

“I give her ... the finger.”

Just wanted to make sure you didn’t miss that bit. You’ve kindly followed this thread a long way, more than anyone should be expected to, so, you know. Note that.

The emaciated trucker queen stares back at me, burning. (With rage.)

I look back at Jared. He crumbles.

Behind me, Sami shouts: “The Eagles are coming!”

We step out into the parking lot and a squad of ugly-ass AMC Eagles pulls up, squealing tires.

“Get your ass in the car!”

I climb in the passenger seat and who should be driving but the horny old bastard who ditched us in Chattanooga for his hot muscley BDSM whip-trick.

What’s even funnier? He’s dresses head to toe in white. It’s like he’s off to play cricket.

White!

BITCH IT’S JANUARY.

Anyway. We come back home. Sami goes back to being called Bob. Marries. (A woman.) Has kids. Gets “drunk” at birthdays under the party tree and tries something, I hold him off.

As for me, I do ok. I mean it’s DC, men are always passing through. I focus on writing.

Eventually I decide to leave, to go overseas, and never come back.

A lot of the queens from the nipple ring adventure come with me, but not Sa— uh, Bob. He stays behind. He makes his choice.

But the rest of us end up at a beachfront condo in Sitges.

THE END