Chapter 2: Chapter 2
So the money for Cupcakes came from the Bottom Boy and his professional dick-days in California. But the bakery wasn’t all his, even if he paid for it in cash. My name was on the business and I owned fifty percent of its sweets. Whatever belonged to me in our relationship was his, and vice versa. Maybe this is why we were still involved.
One thing about queer porn stars, no matter how old they were or how they used their dicks, viewers never knew what their hobbies were off camera. Some liked NASCAR and others played touch football on Saturday mornings. Some men might have liked coffee, played in a band, or wrote poetry while Richter enjoyed baking. Hence, Cupcakes was born. Richter baked everything he could when he wasn’t in front of the camera. He had a passion for baking: cakes, breads, pies, brownies, tarts, and cupcakes. You named it and he baked it.
And while he baked, I attempted to apply my business degree from UCLA. I knew numbers, tax forms, and how to create a small business. I comprehended supply and demand as if it were elementary addition. I understood a business proposal and attempted many on paper. That is what I did before Cupcakes came to life in Snowden. After my copy boy position in the adult industry, I worked at a small corporation called Business Pros for Life in West Hollywood. Our clients were gay, loaded with the green, and hired me to do start-ups for their individual businesses, which included high-end restaurants, hair salons, queer bars, laundromats, home interiors, and knickknack shops.
Amen to West Hollywood for Richter’s flesh-career and my degree from UCLA. That was the beginning to our own business, and all our happiness. Cupcakes was in the making, and neither of us realized it. 3: Head East, Young Men
What drew us East? Rather, whodrew us East? That is the question to ask how Richter and I went from living in California and ended up in Pennsylvania. I blame Anthony Jarr. How couldn't I?
That delicious jock was a friend from my childhood: grade school through high school. When I decided to apply at UCLA to obtain a degree in business, and eventually moved to the sunny state of California, Jarr became lost and had a semi-nervous breakdown. Our friendship didn’t fall apart, though. Instead, it only grew stronger. The thirty-one year old with red-hair and fern-green eyes, was a hottie with his model-like body and survived his breakdown. He worked for his real estate license, and turned into one of the leading realtors in northwestern Pennsylvania. Such a career prompted him to call me two years ago while Richter and I were living and working in California.
Jarr woke me from a nap and said, “There’s a property you have to look at here in Snowden.”
“Snowden by the lake? Snowden in Pennsylvania?” I was groggy and thought I was dreaming.
“Yes, that Snowden. The same small town where we lost our virginity at sixteen.”
He lost his to an older gentleman by the name of Clide Costing, although I called him Clide Accosting because he practically raped Jarr. I lost my boyhood innocence to a high school swimmer named Robert Meldershon. Both stories were different and happened in opposite seasons, but each transpired in Snowden inside the dirty bathroom stalls at the Snowden Movie Complex.
Anyway, those sexual tales are only for the strong. Let me get back to Jarr and why he called me in California.
“Why should I look at a property in Snowden?”
“Because Richter and you want to open a bakery, right?”
He knew that we did, since I talked about it with him all the time via Facebook, e-mail, and text. Richter wanted something with a classical look and I wanted a cheap place that we could afford. “Tell me more and cut to the cake.”
“You mean chase. Cut to the chase.”
“No,” I said, “cake.”
He ignored me, which I didn’t blame him for. “The Hostetter Building is for sale in Snowden. Do you remember it?”
Yes, I did. The swimmer who had taken my virginity had lived above the Hostetter Pharmacy, inside one of its two apartments. No longer was the pharmacy there, or the two apartments. The place had sat empty for the last five or so years since Mr. Edwin Hostetter passed away from emphysema. Hostetter had willed the property to his thirty-something year old son who lived in Stockton County, Oklahoma, but the cowboy didn’t want anything to do with it. Instead, Mr. Oklahoma decided to put a For Sale sign on the building and its rear parking lot, which Jarr insisted that Richter and I take advantage of, claiming, “Another opportunity in Snowden will not come up for years. This is yours for the taking. Don’t think otherwise.”
What our conversation entailed was life-changing. The price of the building was just right and Richter and I had decided that the once-pharmacy on the first floor would work perfectly for Cupcakes. We could live on the second floor apartment and rent out the third floor apartment. Other aspects of a move from West Hollywood to Snowden included: Snowden needed a bakery, Richter’s days in the porn industry were limited, and he and I could be with my brother, his family, and my best friend Jarr again. The plan and move was cost effective, but it was a risk. Richter and I just weren’t moving to a different state to live, we were changing jobs, lifestyles, and blowing up our worlds with new drama
I would have done it all the same way because everyone involved won: Jarr with the sale of the Hostetter Building, Richter because he could bake for a living and be with his family, and I got to keep Richter, gained my relationship with Jarr back, and was the proud owner of a bakery called Cupcakes. 4: Grand Opening
Cupcakes “ … is to die for,” according to food editor, Wayne Rightsville, of the Snowden Post. “If you want something yummy, serious, or teaspoon-perfect, drop by the place and try anything!”
Wayne wrote a fabulous review of the bakery before it opened for business, which pleased Richter and I. He mentioned the original Tiffany windows over the front doors, the mahogany floor that squeaked when customers walked over it, and the vintage U-shaped glass cases filled with breads, pies, cookies, cakes, and other treats. He said the tiny, two-person dessert tables at the front of the store were “comfortable and eye-appealing,” and added that “playful music from the fifties and sixties” filled the bakery and added “much cheer and friendly zest.”
Such a review helped Cupcakes’ grand opening. Richter and I opened the place on January 14, sixteen months ago. Business textbooks say the first year of a business is the hardest, but I have to confess that it was breeze, minus a water leak during our grand opening, an asbestos ceiling that needed removal during remodeling, funky tasting white icing during the month of March, and the mysterious death of a beefhead named Marcus Sa, one of Jarr’s sexual flings.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone