Commitment Issues

by Wynn Wagner

  I wiped my crotch and ass and got dressed. Chico was a fuck buddy. I looked into the mirror in his bathroom and found red marks all over my chest and stomach.

  When I threw my legs over the Harley, I just sat there for several minutes. Did I really just do what I thought I had done? First of all, there were the clothespins and the finger-stretch. Second, Sean was playing the part of the top all over Chico's mouth. And third, it all felt fucking great. I was so stoned on endorphins that I wasn't sure I ought to ride my motorcycle across town.

  I backed out of the driveway and almost lost it in a patch of gravel on the side of the road. I started the bike. Potato. Potato. Potato. And I rode down to a twenty-four-hour drug store a few blocks away. I didn't need anything in the store, but I wanted to just sit for a few minutes before heading back out on the freeway.

  Chico really pounded my ass. I hadn't felt the full impact at the house because I was still getting over all the clothespins. I have no idea what kind of reaction that I had to those pins. In the past I really haven't liked people pinching me. Chico filled up most of my chest and stomach with wall-to-wall pinch, and I liked it. There was just a moment that I didn't like, but as soon as the pin was in place, it was great. I liked it when he thumped the pins. Okay, taking the pins off wasn't my favorite. I wasn't a big fan of having half a hand in my ass, but he really enjoyed that. His fingers stretched me out further than I had ever experienced, and he knew it would make my ass hyper-sensitive. He pounded me hard, and it didn't cause any friction. I was way too wide and loose for friction. Hopefully it will shrink back down, I thought.

  Okay, I can ride. Calling Chico had been a good idea. I really was mainly looking for an escape because I didn't get to meet Wyatt, but Chico turned out to be more than I expected.

  My compliments to the chef, I guess. I would have to remember to tell him... or maybe not. Would he just crank up the intensity if I told him that I thought it was a hot trip? And if he did, would I enjoy that too?

  Whatever. I started thinking about Wyatt again as I rode home.

  When I got up the next day, it was Wyatt that I thought about. There wasn't anything wrong with Chico, but he was just a fuck buddy. Wyatt wasn't even that, but there was something so completely awesome about the kid that it made everything else in my life go blurry.

  My life was consumed by that five-second memory of him walking into the gay group. I wasn't saving myself for this blond god, but I lost interest in almost everything else.

  The worst part was that I spent all day Saturday trying to write poetry. I lay out by the pool and scribbled verse. That's just disgusting. I hate poetry, but there was something going on that made me want to use beautiful words to describe Wyatt's hair and shoulders. I found beauty in the memory of his walk into the AA group. I don't do poetry. It's creepy.

  I rode over to the AA group and sat through the noon meeting, the six p.m. meeting and the eight p.m. meeting. I was about to explode from an overdose of sobriety. It's one thing if you are just trying to get sober when you need to go to as many meetings as possible. I had been sober for a couple of years, and I had heard all the stories before. There were new faces, but they always had the same things to say, even if they thought they were somehow unique.

  I grabbed a quick hamburger at a Whataburger and dashed back to the AA group. It wasn't that I needed to be there, but I sure was hoping that, you know....

  How many cups of bad coffee can one guy put away? By the time it got close to time for the eleven p.m. meeting, I was buzzed from caffeine.

  I used my phone to type “THNX” and pressed the green button to send the text message to Chico. “UBECHA” was the quick reply.

  Chairs in the AA group were a lot harder than I remembered from just the day before. My ass was going to take a few days to recover. Chico was the gift that kept on giving. He was so much fun, but it wasn't Chico that captured my mind that evening. My head kept going back to Wyatt like the kid had captured me in some kind of bungee netting. The minute I remembered the wild fuck with Chico, I imagined Wyatt's tender green eyes capturing my imagination. Where Chico was a total animal, Wyatt would be tender and wonderful.

  It was like I wanted to write poetry about the curls in his hair, how they were wispy like springtime clouds. I wanted to create a sonnet about how lovely his ears were, even though his hair covered his ears, hiding them completely. I wanted to write verse for him, but I don't even like poetry. This guy was making me nuts.

  The meeting started, and Wyatt wasn't there. Great. Just great.

  First, I get an angel named Rafa who pops up on a fence but disappears right after he made love to me. Then my talent agent is good as a fuck buddy, but I have to go onto the Injured Reserve every time we get together. Now the guy with the curly blond hair came to one AA meeting, got a desire chip, and vanished just as completely as my angel. I never even got to touch the AA guy.

  I was busy feeling sorry for myself and reminding myself that I went to AA for the program, not for the eye-candy, when I heard his voice.

  "I'm Wyatt, and I just want to listen."

  He had come in at the last moment, and he was sitting across the room by the door. He did the same as the night before: stare at the floor and shake and cry. His hair danced every time he cried.

  Knowing that Wyatt was in pain made me sad. There was little that I could do to comfort him because it hurts to get sober. I wanted to be there for him and to tell him that it did get better, but he was across the room from me. Maybe I could talk to Wyatt after the meeting. Talk to him? Silly boy, I would just drool and make baby noises. Wyatt was way out of my league.

  So pretty. His blond hair was curly but not frizzy. It was tossed in a kind of shag that hid his neck and ears. What little I could see of Wyatt's skin was pale and delicate. I was sitting a few rows back and on the far side of the room. That was two meetings in a row where I was too far away to pick up any details. There was his obvious glow—Wyatt was my shining sun—but I wanted to see more. I needed to have more details for my imagination. It would only take me a few seconds to memorize every feature of his face, but I couldn't do that from where I was sitting.

  I saw several others staring too, and I wanted to scream at the others to get their lecherous eyeballs back onto the meeting leader. I wanted to protect him from all the other gawkers at the meeting. Plenty of guys were looking at Wyatt, and I would make sure they kept their hands to themselves. Though I could barely see his face, I could see the kid was right out of a Hollywood movie. I could have sat there for hours just soaking in the vision of Wyatt sitting across the room, but the kid was a newcomer at Alcoholic Anonymous, and that meant he was fragile. He needed the space to concentrate on getting sober and staying sober. Wyatt would need protection from the hawks of AA. Even Adonis was breakable.

  When we all stood up to hold hands and close the meeting, Wyatt ducked out the door. By the time I could get outside, he was gone. There was no trace of him. I ran to the street, but I already knew it was hopeless.

  It was hopeless, but maybe not forever, because he had shown that he wanted to be sober by showing up for a second meeting. So many guys just come to one meeting, and you never saw them again until their face was put into an obituary in the local gay newspaper.

  I could live with this. I could wait another day. Maybe Chico... no, that was stupid, because I didn't want to have sex with Chico. Even if I wanted it, my ass hadn't recovered from the last time.

  * * * *

  "ORGY” came a one-word message on my phone. I didn't even have to look to see who had sent it. It was Saturday night, I was at an AA meeting, and nobody had to work the next day except preachers, nurses, and radio announcers. I didn't have to work weekends, but nobody turned radio transmitters off for things like weekends and holidays.

  I couldn't even lie to Chico about my schedule. Hello: he was my agent and would know I didn't work on Sunday. Or if I did work on Sunday, he'd probably send his lawyers around. Lawyers or muscle or someth
ing.

  "TFTI 2M2H” was my message back to him. Would he even know that shorthand? I had been texting with a friend for a few years, and I never knew if we had developed too much of a private set of abbreviations or if any of them were understood by others.

  "LOLO,” he answered. Yeah! He knew that “TFTI” meant “thanks for the invitation” and “2M2H” was my way of saying he was “too much to handle” so soon after he ripped me a new one. “LOLO” is some kind of laugh mutation, but I'm not exactly sure what it really means.

  My tits were hard and perky after texting Chico. I was thinking about Wyatt and texting Chico, and my tits were hard. It made me laugh at myself.

  I was ready for Wyatt's last-minute entrance. I sat strategically in a chair directly behind the one he liked. It was where he always sat. Well, it was where he sat twice before. I had the evening carefully planned and choreographed.

  Just as the meeting started, a guy whom I'd known for a year or two came in to sit in Wyatt's chair. No! Fuck! Damn it. All my careful planning and arranging had been ruined by some animal cracker that I suddenly really didn't like. Didn't the cretin know that he had plopped down in Wyatt's chair?

  Wyatt came in and looked right at me, and oh my God. I froze. If he'd said anything, I don't think I could have responded. He walked to a chair behind me, so I got the entire hour to “process” the memory of his image.

  Oh my God. I mean, oh my God. Shit. Wyatt's eyes were green and had a slight almond shape. His skin was pale white, so whatever was causing his eye shape was somewhere in his distant background. If I had to guess, I'd say his ancestors came from Russia. That's in the ballpark of Mongolia, which could account for the epicanthic fold of his eyelid. The fold was really slight, but it was there, and it made him seem completely exotic.

  All of that was from a glance that lasted two or three seconds. He glanced at me without even acknowledging that I was a life form. Wyatt was concentrating on staying sober. I know because I've been there. His image got etched into my memory in the couple of seconds I could see him. It was like somebody had a big spotlight pointed at his blond hair. He glowed, and the room felt more alive. I wanted to write poetry and send it to his parents out of my gratitude for their work. Did I mention to you that I thought he was the most stunning man I had ever seen? I mean, oh my God.

  Nobody called on him at the meeting, and he didn't volunteer to say anything.

  "Anybody else?” the meeting's leader said. I was looking at the leader, so I didn't notice any hands.

  "I'm Wyatt, and I'm an alcoholic."

  "Hi, Wyatt,” everybody said, and my heart almost stopped.

  "I got kicked out of my apartment today. It was my boyfriend. I guess he's now an ex-boyfriend or something. When I told him that I was coming here, he said AA is a cult and threw all of my stuff onto the sidewalk."

  "You have a place to stay today?” the leader asked.

  "Yeah,” Wyatt said. “The 24 Hour Club."

  That's one place that will get your attention. If you get somebody to tell you what they think alcoholics look like, they'll describe people you can find at the 24 Hour Club.

  "Good,” the meeting leader said. “That's Sean—Sean R.—right in front of you."

  I looked up and turned around to look at Wyatt. Melt! Heart attack. Oh my God. Get me a paper bag, because I know that I'm going to hyperventilate. If I don't hyperventilate, then I may get motion sickness. Help! What was the leader trying to do? I couldn't talk to Wyatt. I'd just blabber incoherently.

  One of our older members caught my eye, and I knew what he was thinking. He was almost a predator around pretty boys. Somebody was going to have to protect this kid. Somebody was going to have to help him navigate the waters. Even the most awful dirty old men would give a newcomer space, but they'd be hovering. They would be ready to pounce as soon as Wyatt was sober, and I decided to be the kid's protector.

  "Hi, Sean,” Wyatt said.

  "After the meeting, Sean is going to give you his phone number and the number of at least three or four others."

  I nodded.

  "Sean, make sure he has a Big Book too."

  After the meeting, Wyatt waited for me. I had no idea what to say or do, but I had an assignment. We had slogans plastered all over the walls, and I caught a glimpse of one: I AM RESPONSIBLE. Whenever anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of AA always to be there. And for that: I am Responsible.

  In a way, it was the only way that I could have a conversation with such a dream guy. The part of me that wanted to drool wasn't as strong as the part that wanted to be responsible. Wyatt was so hurt by his addiction that it made me want to cry with him. I had been through just what he was going through.

  My head was racing, and I don't know if I made any sense to Wyatt. He was so delicate and hurt, and I was such a buffoon.

  It was all business, because I was the “hand of AA” that night. He was a newcomer, and I had been around for a few years. Ugggh, why is this happening to me? I didn't know what to do.

  I got him a copy of the Big Book, the main textbook on staying sober. The group keeps several on a bookshelf, and there is a slot to drop money. I put a twenty-dollar bill into the slot without looking to see if that was too much or not enough.

  When I gave Wyatt the book, I also gave him a pencil and told him to write his name in the book. I told him my name again and gave him my cell phone number.

  "How's it going for you?” I asked. Stupid question.

  "Pretty good. I am unemployed,” he said. “My so-called boyfriend tossed my ass out of the apartment, and I'm camped out at the 24 Hour Club. So it's peachy. I got the world just where I want it."

  I smiled. At least the guy has a good sense of humor. “Hungry?"

  "No cash right now."

  "I didn't ask if you were flush,” I whispered. “I just asked if you were hungry. There's a diner a couple of blocks from here. There's usually a group of guys from the meeting at the diner. When I first got here, somebody was there with an occasional meal. It's payback for that. One day, you can take somebody there, so it isn't charity. It's like I'm making a deposit in your AA bank. ‘Kay?"

  That made him cry, and he leaned over to hug me. He put his head into my shoulder, and I felt my whole body get tense. Wyatt was touching me, and he had no idea what it was doing to me. I had never felt a man who was so soft and cuddly and warm and tender and.... Ugggh, I want this man so bad.

  "You like poetry?” I asked him.

  "Can't stand it,” he said. “Why?"

  "Private joke with myself. Don't worry about it."

  He drove and followed my motorcycle to the diner. We got a booth in the back.

  His right ear was pierced in three places—one diamond stud and a frilly dangly thing in the earlobe, plus a loop higher up—but his left ear had never seen a needle.

  "Coffee, please,” he told the waitress.

  "Iced coffee,” I said.

  "You guys ready to order?"

  "Sure,” Wyatt said. “I'll have the number six."

  "We don't have a number six,” she said.

  "Couple of eggs with bacon and toast?"

  "Sure, we got that. How do you want your eggs?"

  "Battered and deep fried,” Wyatt said.

  "The cook's going to come out here with a big knife,” I told him with a chuckle.

  "Over medium and hold the mayo,” Wyatt said.

  "We don't put mayo on eggs,” the waitress said, still not realizing that Wyatt was playing.

  "That'll make it easier for you."

  "What about you?” she asked me.

  "Short stack, side of sausage,” I said.

  "You want mayo?” she asked.

  "He can't,” Wyatt said. “He's driving."

  The waitress walked away shaking her head. It was like I was sitting with a completely different person. Wyatt was so scared in the AA meeting, but he was almost bouncy at the diner. He was good with one-to-one conversation, but he was
intimidated at having to speak before about thirty people in a group setting.

  Wyatt plucked his eyebrows, and he had the longest eyelashes you can imagine. His pale skin was flawless, and it made his green eyes stand out as the only source of real color on his face. He must have known how pretty he was, but he didn't act like it. Wyatt was just a regular guy.

  Wyatt undoubtedly had a lifetime of stories about guys trying to put the make on him, and I did my best to remain proper. He needed the hand of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I was that hand. At least for now.

  "Blond hair with green eyes,” I said. Great, Sean, why did you have to swing the conversation around to Wyatt's looks? Sometimes the crap that comes out of my mouth is awkward.

  "Yup,” Wyatt said. “It was a little something my mother wanted, and they considered me a special order because of it. She had to pay a big deposit."

  "I don't think I ever—"

  "Estonian,” Wyatt said.

  "Isn't that near Finland and Russia somewhere?"

  "Very good, my geography scholar. Latvia is in there too, but Estonia is sort of its own deal. The language isn't like Russian or Finnish or anything else. It's a little like Hungarian, for some reason, but Hungary is a long way south."

  "Were you born there?"

  "In Hungary?"

  "No, silly, Estonia,” I said with a laugh. Wyatt had a quick mind for somebody just coming off an addiction like booze.

  "Heavens, no,” he said. “I couldn't stand the cold. I was born down on the gulf coast."

  "New Orleans?” I guessed from his accent.

  "You writing a book? Yeah, I was born in N'Orleans, but we didn't stay there long, though I picked up the accent. I got cousins still there, but I mostly grew up in Wisconsin."

  "I thought you didn't like the cold."

  "It's complicated. I moved south as soon as I could."

  "Didn't mean to pry,” I said. “Sorry."

  "It's okay. No big deal."

  "Are you okay at the 24 Hour Club?"

  "It's just ducky,” he laughed. “I go to a meeting a day there. It's the rule, and I have to help out around the club."