by Xavier Mayne
“Ah, the thrill of illicit liaisons—I know it well. Sneaking around the back rooms of chic clubs with closeted celebrities. But of course I quite admire your blue-collar version, with drunk truckers in cheap motels.”
Virgil’s bemused look conveyed no gratitude for Bryce’s admiration.
Bryce had no time for bemusement. “But, darling, if we are all playing with the same team, why in heaven’s name did you burden us with these tawdry pulp novels full of heterosexing?”
“Have you ever read one?” Virgil asked.
“Oh my, no! The very idea.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“I know the outlines of it. They covered the basics in high school health class, and the parts I glimpsed through my fingers were more than enough to convince me I could go safely to the grave without firsthand knowledge of the female terrain betwixt neck and knee.”
“These novels aren’t about women—they’re written for women, about men. If you want to know how straight guys think, you need to read novels written by women, for women, about men.”
“But what could a woman possibly know about men?”
“That’s not important. What’s important is what men know about what women know about men.”
Bryce turned to Nestor. “Is he making any sense to you?”
Nestor shook his head and shrugged.
Bryce turned back to Virgil with a sympathetic tilt of his head. “I suspect, dear, you’ve caught something from one of your straight trucker friends that has left you seriously deranged.”
Virgil shook his head and patted Bryce on the knee. “Let me break this down for you. First, you must understand what motivates straight men. What makes them do everything, from the moment they wake up until they fall asleep at night—and pretty much dominates their dreams as well. That thing is… women.”
Bryce and Nestor shuddered.
“It’s true. It’s like a nature documentary, a Darwinian struggle. If the species is to survive, then the straight ones must be driven by a primal need to pass on their genetic material. Now, because Mother Nature knows what’s up, she gave straight men the overpowering desire to stick their dicks in any female willing to allow them to do it.”
Bryce clapped his hands over his ears. “Stop! Stop this horror story!”
“I’m almost to the good part. Now, how does a man convince a woman to let him impale her?”
Bryce lowered his hands. “Convince her? Really? All I hear from those conservative ninnies in the media is that heterosexuality is natural and normal, and now you’re telling me that women have to be argued into bed?” Bryce stopped for a moment to consider this. “I guess it is just punishment, if they insist on being straight.”
“Yes, it’s a straight man’s sad lot in life: he can only have sex with women when he negotiates the terms of their relationship beforehand. And how do you think he’s going to approach this negotiation? How will he behave in order to convince the woman to consent? He’s not going to do it by being himself, or by being what he thinks a man should be. No, he’s going to be the man he thinks the woman wants him to be.”
“So in order to have sex with a woman, a man has to stop being a man and start being what he thinks a woman thinks a man should be?”
“Now you’re getting it,” cried Virgil. “Men work so hard to adapt their behavior to women’s expectations that pretty soon they don’t even realize they’re doing it. It becomes part of who they are. And these romance novels show exactly what women think men should be. So I read them to be able to understand straight guys.”
“And with that understanding, you can ruthlessly exploit their weaknesses in order to have sex with them!” Bryce called out, clapping his hands. “Well played, sir, well played.”
“I knew a man of culture such as yourself would appreciate the genius of my plan.”
“But, just a moment,” Bryce said, pursing his lips. “If the men are trying to be what they think women think they should be, what are the women doing?”
“Ah, that is the real tragedy. For generations women were taught to define themselves by what men thought they should be. So now, whether they know it or not, most women make themselves into what they think the men in their lives want them to be.”
Bryce’s brow was furrowed. “So, if I understand correctly, heterosexuality requires that men try to be the way they think women think they should be, while women try to be the way they think men think they should be. So both sides are trying to be what the other wants, but what the other wants is already based on what the other thinks the other other wants. It simply beggars imagination,” he said with an exasperated flailing of his arms, “that heterosexuals ever have any sex at all.”
“My point precisely. The chances that a straight man is getting as much sex as he’d like are about nil. And that makes my chances pretty darn good. Picture the guy who has a few dates with women who won’t put out, and then he gets sent out on the road alone for a week. Then put him in a dingy hotel with a fifth of something high-proof and nowhere to go. That’s when I break out my tablet with a hundred gigs of porn, which, generous soul that I am, I’m happy to share. Ten minutes of that and I’ll be eating him out of my hand.”
Bryce gasped. “That is a stratagem of uplifting depravity. I am furious I didn’t think of it first.”
“Something tells me you’ll be able to put the information to good use, Bryce.”
“Oh, I am already planning how I can adapt it to the seduction of the various straightish men in my life. The construction workers, the parcel delivery couriers, the angry closeted pastors. But let’s start with the pirates, shall we?” Bryce picked up the novel with the bare-chested swashbuckler on the cover and waved it about. “Yo ho ho, ladies! It’s time to pick up some sailors!”
He opened the book and began to read.
Still early, Madrid airport
THE CLATTER of the rail station gate rolling up startled him awake. Brandt looked at his watch and saw that it was precisely half past something—was his watch set for San Diego, or Mexico City, or Madrid? He glanced up at the clock on the wall and found that it was indeed five thirty. Time to get on the train.
Across the two-foot gap, Kerry was sleeping peacefully. Brandt decided to let her sleep while he went to purchase tickets. This he was able to accomplish quickly as the ticket counter displayed instructions in every imaginable language. It was, he sheepishly admitted to himself, exactly as easy as Kerry had predicted it would be. He picked up a couple of cups of coffee from the little espresso bar in the station and headed back to camp.
When he arrived, Kerry was finishing putting the seats back into their original positions. Her carry-on sat next to Brandt’s duffel, tidy and ready to move. She held out her hands for the coffee he brought.
“Oh, thank you, you lovely man,” she enthused as she smelled the sharp aroma of train-station coffee emanating from the little cup.
“You really do need to meet Gabriel,” Brandt said with a laugh. “His eyes roll back in his head exactly that way when he gets his first sip of coffee in the morning.”
“I love him even more now,” she said with a smile. “Now, when does our train leave?”
“It runs every half hour, and there are only a couple of stops between us and the main railway station. It takes about forty-five minutes. First train is in twenty. From there,” he continued, consulting one of his many booklets, “the express to Barcelona leaves every half hour and takes about three hours. So, we’ll be in Barcelona by noon, looks like.”
“Excellent. Then we’ll see how far we can get from there.” She paused for a moment, as if unsure whether she should continue. “What would you think about…?”
He stopped after picking up his duffel. “Think about what?” he asked.
“Now, I know you want to get to Southampton as soon as you can, but honestly there’s no point in doing that if he won’t be there for almost a week. What would you think about taking a day or tw
o in Paris? Judging from the big train map over there, we’re going to have to change trains in Paris anyway before we get to London, so we might just as well….”
He looked at her for a long moment. “You’re right,” he finally said.
She seemed surprised to have won him over so easily. “I am?”
He nodded. “It’s like Gabriel’s always telling me: if you aren’t where you want to be, then you might as well enjoy getting where you’re going. Or something like that—everything sounds better when he says it.”
“He’s right, you know,” she said as she picked up her carry-on bag. “How many times in your life are you going to find yourself in Paris by accident? We might as well spend a little time looking at paintings or whatever while we’re there.”
He squinted at her. “Paintings or whatever? Seriously?”
“What? Are you implying I’m not a cultured person? I’ll have you know I support my local public television station.”
“Wow,” Brandt said with a laugh. “Lucky me, being escorted through the Louvre by a card-carrying member of PBS.”
“I’m no Gabriel Donnelly, but I shall do my best,” she said with a gracious curtsey, then socked him on the arm on her way past him. “Shake a leg, Officer. The train’s going to be boarding in a few.”
He turned and followed her, laughing in spite of himself at her predawn dramatics.
It was slightly after noon when they arrived in Barcelona after two train rides. Kerry proposed that they stay overnight and add the Spanish city to their itinerary, but Brandt—for reasons he couldn’t really explain—wanted to get to Paris, where at least he would be closer to where Donnelly would be. Eventually.
So when the high-speed train finally deposited them at the Gare de Lyon, they had been on the rails for more than fourteen hours. They stood on the sidewalk and looked tiredly at each other. It was an hour to midnight.
“Well, I suppose we should find a place to stay,” Brandt said. “Maybe we should ask a cab driver for a recommendation?”
Kerry squinted at him. “Suddenly you want to live dangerously? Where do you think a Paris cab driver is going to deposit two American tourists at this hour of the day? We’d be sleeping in a brothel.” She laughed as if this were the funniest thing she’d imagined all day, then turned without another word to hail a cab.
“Wait, I thought you said a cab was the wrong way to go,” he said, a little indignant.
“No, you were right about the cab. It’s just that I’m going to tell him exactly where to take us.”
“I thought you hadn’t been to Paris before?”
“I haven’t. But I travel all the time for work, and I have a ton of points with all of the hotel chains. We’ll go to one of these.” She held out a stack of a half-dozen or more plastic cards, each showing the logo of a hotel—most of them far posher than anyplace Brandt had ever stayed.
A cab pulled up, and Kerry launched herself into it. A moment of consultation with the driver in her sketchily remembered high school French—combined with the cards as visual aids—soon got them on their way.
“Thanks for taking care of that,” Brandt said as the cab wound its way through the streets of Paris. “I wouldn’t have known what to do.”
“We’re in this together, buddy,” Kerry said, leaning on his shoulder. “I’ll take care of the hotel room, and you take care of any mimes who try to rough me up for spare change.”
“It’s a deal.” Brandt shuddered. “Ugh—mimes.”
They were soon in the spectacular lobby of a grand hotel. Brandt held their bags while Kerry spoke to the clerk at the desk. She returned and pointed him to the elevators.
“They had one room left,” she said. “It’s a good thing I worked so hard to land that French-Canadian exchange student in high school—I still remember how to flirt en français.” She held up the card key as if it were an engagement ring. “Floor neuf, s’il vous plait,” she said grandly.
He looked at her blankly.
“Nine. I think,” she said, then shrugged and giggled.
The ninth floor was the pinnacle of the hotel, and the suite into which Kerry had flirted them was spacious and filled with more marble than the average sculpture gallery. There was, however, only one bed. It was, like the rest of the suite, executed on a grand scale, but it was the only place to sleep unless one counted the fainting couch on the balcony that overlooked landmarks Brandt surely would have been able to recognize were he able to look anywhere other than that bed. That one big bed.
Kerry opened the doors to the bathroom, which was, of course, palatial. “Oh my, yes,” she whispered approvingly. “Now, if you’d like to take a shower before turning in, go right ahead, because I’m going to lounge in that enormous tub for like an hour.”
“Are you telling me I need a shower?”
“The last chance we had to take a shower was in San Diego, remember? Do you even know how many days ago that was? I don’t. Now if you’d like to take one, please do, because I’m serious—you may not be able to get me out of that tub.”
“All right, all right,” Brandt said, laughing. “I’ll take a quick one and you can have the place to yourself.” He cast another glance at the bed. “So, about sleeping arrangements….”
“Look, I used to road trip with friends all the time in college—you should ask Greg to tell you about our trip to St. Louis sometime—and I have no problem sharing a bed. Is it okay with you?”
It wasn’t. Not by a long shot. “Sure, yeah, it’ll be fine.” His only hope was to be asleep before she came to bed. That was the only way he’d be sure not to embarrass himself. He smiled to show her it was okay—it still wasn’t—and took his duffel with him into the bathroom. The shower had a control panel that looked like it had been lifted from the space shuttle, but he managed to cajole hot water out of it. Kerry was right: he had no idea how long it had been since he’d taken a shower. It was heavenly, though he was true to his word and showered as quickly as possible.
As he stepped out of the shower, he realized he hadn’t packed anything to sleep in. When he and Donnelly were together he never wore anything to bed since it would only get in the way. But now he would need something. He remembered that he had packed some running shorts and a T-shirt, which he grabbed out of his carry-on and slipped into. He strode back into the bedroom, clean and more than ready for bed.
“Better, right?” she asked.
“Much,” he said, and he really did feel it. “Thanks for letting me play through. I imagine I’ll be sound asleep in about three minutes, so soak as long as you like. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Morning? Really? I’ll consider noon… if you have room service deliver something unspeakably delicious.”
“It’s a deal.”
She danced excitedly over to the bathroom and closed the door behind her.
He climbed into the large, soft, and luxuriously welcoming bed. As he settled his head onto the pillow, he felt certain he really would be sound asleep by the time she came to bed.
In this certainty he was very much mistaken.
A wedge of light from the bathroom awakened him and illuminated her form as she walked toward the bed. It was a shape Brandt had not contemplated for years—not since Donnelly and the masculine force he brought crashing into Brandt’s life—and seeing it now, the past, his own history, rose up and stabbed him in the chest.
She was beautiful as she glided silently around the room, patting her hair dry, arranging her few clothes neatly in the armoire. Her movements were as sure as they were delicate, and even in the dim twilight of their Paris hotel room, he could see she was nude.
He closed his eyes, knowing he shouldn’t intrude upon her privacy. She had been so good to him over the last few days as they made their way across the globe together, accidental traveling companions. This was the one thing she wanted to indulge herself in—a luxurious soak, a quiet moment—and here he lay violating that. Violating her. But he couldn’t make himself
close his eyes.
His mind, as minds will often do when we most need them to behave themselves, betrayed him. It brought up an image of Donnelly, his beloved Gabriel, walking through a darkened room naked. His tread would be heavier, he would block out the light with his broad shoulders. He would bring a waft of musky strength, not lavender. His silhouette would bulge with muscle where hers showed the graceful curve of her breast as she reached to hang a blouse.
Brandt clenched his eyes closed, bracing against the question that invaded his mind: would he be hard, right now, achingly hard, if it were Donnelly he were watching? Because he could no longer ignore the throb of his erection, its head jabbing the sheets.
He was hard. For her.
Fuck.
He managed to pretend to be asleep while she glided about the room, and even when she lifted the covers and slipped into bed wearing an oversize T-shirt. There was nothing sexy about what she wore, but the way she wore it agonized him. He could see, as she turned to rearrange the pillows, the gentle weight of her breasts, the delicate line of her clavicle.
That was his favorite part.
It hit him like a splash of ice water to the face.
His favorite part.
That place where the curve of the throat meets the collarbone, that soft concavity where the skin is so soft and so sensitive. He would kiss her there, every woman he had ever been with, and she would sigh with delight. It was a secret recess, a place he loved. Her scent would be strongest there, as if the perfume she wore lay in wait, released by the heat he inspired with his caress. That moment, a kiss at the base of the throat, was the moment when cuddling became something more. A kiss there portended more kisses, lower kisses, to come.
He had forgotten that.
Or, his betraying mind prompted, had he forced himself never to think of it? Had he chosen to deprive himself that heady thrill, that uniquely masculine experience? The feeling of power as he kissed that spot, the surge in his chest from hearing the surprised moan it brought from her delicate throat—these he had forsaken. Forever. Without a second thought.