This is the continuing story of the people who have helped to shape my heart and soul. Reading about them is the best way I can think of to explain what makes me who I am.

Denise: My little sister, my big inspiration.

Denise continues to be my truest friend. By this, I mean to say that she always tells me what appears to be true from her perspective. She has no use for people who thrive and depend on illusions and self-deceptions for their day-to-day well being. Being a chef, and in the guest service business, she has developed a certain casual tolerance for the everyday foolishness which one becomes confronted with from people on vacation or out celebrating. She can smile and banter with the best of them. Once off the clock, however, she is a firm believer that "you can either be happy with your reality, or bust your butt to make it something other than it is, but you can't substitute it for some fairy-tale, cotton candy fantasy and expect me to feed it to you." She tells it like it is, and lets the chips fall where they may.

Now, I don't want to paint a picture of some hard-nosed little witch. She is one of the most compassionate and caring people that I know. She will plan for weeks to surprise you with something, just to make sure that it is perfectly special for you. She loves to tuck away casually spoken of details from conversation in order to use them at a later time to make you smile for her having remembered. She has been forced, through circumstance, to sacrifice her comfort and happiness for that of others over the years. The wonderful thing about her is that she still retains the ability and desire to make huge sacrifices even now for those that she loves. She simply took control by choosing to give away the things which she is now strong enough to keep anyone from taking from her ever again, thus making those things more valuable and special.

Denise came to Orlando after ending a bad marriage. He was everything she wanted him to be except for employed and ambitious. She had both in spades, and soon found that love wasn't all it takes to make a marriage. She left him, and came to work at the restaurant just before I did. I came in after a bad marriage as well. By bad, I mean ill-conceived and foolish. I have never had one iota of doubt in my mind since I was 12 years old that I was gay, but I allowed my parents and her persistence to sway me. Well, to be fair, I cannot blame it on other people. I think that a few too many years of "bashing" helped convince me that maybe there was something wrong with me, and that I should give it a try. At any rate, we had something is common that made it easy to start a conversation, and from there we found that there was a lot we had in common. We started hanging out regularly. One evening, we went to some "sports bar" with all of the other people from the restaurant to celebrate someone's birthday. After 2 and a half minutes, we had both knew that we needed to leave. There is only so much darts and pool over buckets of beer a body can take. Neither of us wanted to go home, so I suggested that we try and have some real fun. I suggested something from my favorite movie, expecting to get shot down as hopelessly campy and strange. I said, "why don't we spend the rest of the night doing things we've never done before?" in my best "Audrey" voice. She just looked at me, recognized the reference, bless her, and agreed. So, off we went, like a Mutt and Jeff version of Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard. (I being 6' 4" and she 5' 1")

Denise said that I had to go first, since it was my idea, but that she was going to pick my thing to do. She had remembered a conversation from a week earlier where I mentioned in passing that I had never kissed a guy in public before (outside of a Pride parade, and that didn't count). I was terrified, but determined not to derail our evening before it had even begun. I had another friend, Michael, who worked at a restaurant around the corner. Steak 'n Shake, nothing fancy. I walked in to the restaurant, told him that I would have to explain later, but that I needed to kiss him, and proceeded to lay it on him. As it turns out, he was a pretty good kisser, and it planted a seed in my mind to explore further, but that is another story. I sauntered out, my task complete, and grinned from ear to ear.

Denise laughed her head off. She was thrilled. She said that she knew what she wanted to do for her turn. I almost objected, but couldn't think of anything really good, so I agreed. She said that she had never been to a gay bar, so I needed to bring her to one. I felt immediately the responsibility of choosing one which would make her first experience a good one. I settled on one, but as I approached I began to think that I probably had chosen wrong. The place I chose was kind of seedy, though always a lot of fun. I didn't want to overwhelm her on her first night. Boy, did I underestimate her! When I turned to leave the parking lot in favor of my other choice, she stopped me immediately. She looked at me with mischeif in her eyes and insisted that we had to stay.

As we were getting out of the truck and heading towards the club, she admitted to me that she had lied to me. She said that she had, indeed, been to a gay bar before, but that she wanted to go again. She quickly added that when we arrived, she had seen on the marquee something that she could do that she really hadn't done before. Not having looked, I glanced over at the Marquee. I nearly passed out. The marquee read, "Amateur Strip Night, tonight only!" I tried to explain that this was primarily a men's club, and that the clientelle here were probably not interested in seeing women, but she would not be deterred. She promptly put her name in the hat to be called upon entering. We went over to get a drink while we waited. I think that I was more nervous than she was.

The contest started not long after we arrived, and the drag queen MC came out and began to insult people as expected. Also, as expected, Denise was the only woman in the contest. In the end, we had a great time. She danced around in panties and a bra and all of the queens hooted and hollered. She came in second place. I have never seen anything like it. We had the time of our lives that night. We had taken the plunge together, throwing off our fears and embracing the future together. We were inseparable from that point on.

We ended up moving in together not long after that. It only made sense since we spent all of our waking hours together. We spent the best times of my life together. She also shared the worst time with me. She sat with me in the waiting room all day and night every moment that I was in the hospital with Marcus. She held my hand, ran for food, ran interference with nurses, and cried all night with me. She never tried to talk me out of running away back to Brazil when I did after Marcus died. I know that she wanted to, but all she said was that she wanted whatever would make me happy. She wouldn't presume to tell me what that was. We tried to stay in contact, but we were half a world apart. When I returned to the states recently, I tried to look her up unsuccessfully. I may be moving back permanently now, and my first priority is to find my little sister and make her a part of my life again.

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