Disconnected

  There was a protracted silence. Lee rolled onto his back and for a second I thought he was pissed. "I don't have AIDS, Rachel. I'm not gay, and I've never slept with those kind of people."

  "And what kind of people would that be, Lee?"

  "You know, high risk people. Gays, bisexuals, heroin users. I don't have AIDS, or any STDs. You're going to have to trust me sooner or later, Ray." Lee pulled the quilt over himself. "Stopped carrying condoms when I was married. Didn't need em. Sharon was on the pill. You don't use birth control?"

  "I tried taking the pill but it made me sick, and I haven't used my diaphragm in so long I wouldn't trust it. Shit! I can't believe this. I can go to Ralph's and get some. Take me ten minutes."

  He leaned up on one elbow watching me, openly scrutinizing my naked body, the blanket covering him to his waist. "Forget it. Come here," Lee virtually commanded. "No worries, my dear." His tone was softer but I couldn't see his expression with only the soft glow of ambient streetlight. He grabbed me playfully, pulling me to him, pressed up against me as he slipped his hand around the back of my neck and then kissed me while he moved his free hand over my breast, my nipple, then slid his fingers lightly down my stomach and buried them in my pubic hair again. I gasped with pleasure. My breathing quickened. My heart pounded. My body flushed with heat and the scent of sex spiked again.

  It took me about five seconds to get off. After the release I giggled with delight, then thanked him. He kissed me again and I sucked him in, reached down and took hold of his hard penis, his length just fitting the width of my hand.

  And right then I realized it was Lee trying to hide something with the dark.

  I held him, began pumping but he grabbed my wrist and stopped me.

  "I'm good. I'll take it from here."

  "Give me a chance," I said gently, still rather surprised by how small he was. The few men I'd been with had all been long and lean. I pushed him flat on his back and then ran my lips and the tip of my tongue up and down his short staff, then drew him into my mouth for a moment (something I rarely did to avoid gagging but felt no such threat with his size), and then withdrew, my mouth tight over the tip of his penis as I pulled back, replacing my mouth with my hand again.

  Lee groaned. "Oh god," he exclaimed, got hard as a rock though never grew more than four, five inches in length tops before he ejaculated. "Thank you," he said and kissed me lightly.

  I scurried off the bed and retrieved a towel from the bathroom. He wiped himself off, then bundled the towel into a tight ball and handed it to me as he pulled the blanket back over him. I tossed it into the laundry basket by the closet door then got back in bed and under the blankets to lay beside him. We snuggled in the afterglow of orgasm. Lee spooned me, put his arm over my side and let his hand rest on my belly. Warmth and contentment enveloped me. I laced my fingers in his. He squeezed my hand and pulled me tight.

  "Tell me what names you like for a girl?" he asked.

  "A girl, huh?" I played along. "Actually, I wouldn't mind having all boys. I've heard boys are a lot...less complicated than girls. And women really do have it a lot harder then men."

  "I'd love a daughter, though, raise her to be strong, and proud, driven like any man, and shatter all the stereotypes of silly, helpless women. How does two boys and one girl sound, like your sister has?"

  "OK. Fine. So what names do you like for boys?"

  "Well, lets see. I like Benjamin, after Mr Franklin, since he was a pretty cool dude.”

  “My first full time job outta college my boss almost raped me at the company Christmas party. He went after his secretary after I kneed him in the crotch. His name was Ben. Benjamin Miller.”

  Lee pulled me to him again with a quick squeeze. “How about Thomas then, after our dear friend Edison. Tom for short."

  I smiled. "I like Tom, and Tommy's cute for a boy. What about Kyle for our second son?"

  "Kyle," he repeated it slowly. "What will his friends call him for short?"

  "Ky. Nothing for kids to make fun of with that."

  "I like it. Reminds me of a surfer dude. He'll fit right in here."

  "I don't want to raise kids in L.A."

  "Where do you want to go then?"

  "North of San Francisco. Mill Valley, Novato maybe, a smaller, safer community."

  "I love it up there. And I can run my business from just about anywhere. That's the beauty of it." He paused to kiss the back of my neck. "You can write, develop photos, build. We'll both have home offices so I can be there for our kids."

  His words enchanted. And I was falling in love with idea of us. I wasn't destined to a life of loneliness and financial hardship. The future didn't have to be like the past, or worse if I stayed alone and childless. I could finally move on to what mattered, as all my contemporaries had done, and work at establishing a real life with Lee.

  -

  Chapter 22

  In a diner a long time ago my waitress was talking to one of her regulars in the booth next to mine. He asked her why she was so chipper lately since she was usually rather serious. "I met a guy a month ago and we're good together. I have someone to share my life with now, the good and bad, which makes most everything better."

  I know just what she meant.

  The Rodney King trial was in motion, the video of his beating shown fifty times a day on every station, and L.A. had a lot of stations, the most in the world actually, even without cable. Everyone was on a hair trigger, especially with reports of random drive-bys almost daily. The cops were afraid of the public they were supposed to be protecting. My casual siesta town had become Crown Heights, Brooklyn. And though L.A. never had a true sense of community like Manhattan or Chicago, until Rodney King we basically got along. But after that video, the city I'd always known as home was beyond scary. It was ugly. Except I had Lee to shelter me from the evil outside, and even the darkness gathering within.

  Little more than a grand to my name after paying my bills in the beginning of the month, including the extra on my Visa for my dog's indiscretions in Oregon, motivated me to get on the phone and find some paying gigs. February sweeps were in full swing and the studios no longer needed freelancers. Within a few days I had two projects, and between the credit union campaign and the bank merger package for my new client, I was busy all day. Lee and I met only for racquetball and/or dinner throughout the week, then I returned home to work, often staying up into the early morning hours to meet deadlines.

  Friday evening after ball Lee suggested we go to Old Town Pasadena and try out one of the new trendy restaurants. Since his place was on the way, he asked we stop there so he could change out of his racquetball attire, and also show me his condo since I'd yet to see it. Instead of leaving my car in the lot to get ripped off or broken into after the club closed, or going backwards to my house to drop it off, I followed Lee to his place, a top floor loft of a sprawling three-story complex nestled in the foothills of Eagle Rock.

  I followed him into the elevator and his warm thick hand slid to the back of my neck and pulled me in for a sensual kiss during the short ride up. Pure bliss from head to toe, we continued kissing even after the elevator door opened, stopping only when we noticed the couple waiting to get on. His condo was modest but clean, a narrow kitchen to the left of the entry beyond which opened up to the living room with an overstuffed leather couch, a giant projection TV, and a synthesizer with a full size piano keyboard hooked up to a complex stereo system. The Nagel painting of the woman and dog hung over the synthesizer. Across the room a sliding glass door opened up to a small concrete patio overlooking a garden with a large pool and small Jacuzzi three floors down.

  He kissed me again on the balcony, then took my hand and led me up the stairs along the far wall to his bedroom. A three foot high glass wall topped with round brass railing ran along the open area of the loft overlooking the living room. The double bed, covered with a thick, white quilt, took up most of the space; the two small mission end tables on either side of it almost touched
the opposing walls. Lee resumed kissing me and we eventually stripped and ended up in his bed. We explored and played with each other until I couldn't hold back much longer and asked for him to come inside me if he had a condom.

  He rolled away and pulled out a gold-foiled coin, like chocolate Hanukkah gelt—a Trojan Magnum Gold condom from his end table drawer. I suppressed a giggle thinking of his size, and vaguely wondered if the condom would stay on him once he was inside me. He held the coin out to me with a teasing grin. I took the condom and peeled back one side of the gold foil and took out the moist rubber.

  I felt clumsy and awkward as I tried to fit the long condom on him. Within moments his hard-on contracted, as did my heart. To avoid a total crash and burn for our second sexual encounter, I tossed the condom on the end table and gathered his cock in my hand, then my mouth, eventually arousing him again.

  Lee moaned then grabbed for the condom and put it on, then virtually shoved me back on the bed and rolled on top of me, and then slammed himself inside me. He came an instant later. Even in the dim light from the courtyard I caught his haughty smile as he sank back on the bed and thanked me in a breathless whisper. A moment later, holding the condom around the base of his cock he got up and went into the bathroom to dispose of the condom.

  Lee came back in a moment later, his dick flaccid, practically lost between his balls as he bent to kiss me, then he crawled under the covers next to me and moved his mouth to my breast and sucked gently. I closed my eyes as he slid his free hand down along my belly then pressed his palm into my crotch while tickling my nipples with his tongue. I moaned then gasped as the sudden surged of pleasure rippled through me. Lee gave me a soft, rather tentative smile. I put my hand on his face, pulled him in and kissed him, but there was a visceral disconnect.

  The air was viscous between us when we finally cuddled up together.

  "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I'm really not used to using a condom. I never liked em. Makes it hard to feel you. On top of which, I don't think I've had sex without being buzzed in ten years."

  The bed seemed to sag and swallow me up. We'd been clean for only six weeks, per my request, and it felt as if he was blaming me for prematurely ejaculating. But I let it ride. I didn't want to make him feel worse than he already did. "Well, I hope you weren't too disappointed." I tried to inject some levity, confident at least I'd gotten him off.

  "You know I'm not." He squeezed me around the ribs so tightly for a second it was hard to breath. Then he brushed my hair back away from my neck and kissed it softly.

  We lay spooning, but the silence felt like a wall between us until his stomach rumble loudly. He laughed. So did I, connecting us again.

  "I'm starving. Let's go into Old Town and get something to eat." Lee gave me a quick kiss and got out of bed, went to his dresser along the glass wall and pulled out clean clothes. I borrowed a dark gray, long sleeve Polo shirt and a pair of his jeans, cinched at the waist with one of his belts, so I wouldn't have to put back on my sweaty skins and t-shirt.

  We ate at some overpriced Italian place and window shopped along Colorado Blvd, recently renovated with high end clothing boutiques, home design shops and art galleries. The Santa Ana winds were up, the night cool, the air clean, sharp.

  “Ever been up to Mt Wilson?” I asked as we were walking, hand in hand, back to his car.

  He glanced at me, smiled. “No.”

  “Well, it ain't Pearsoll Peak, but the view's pretty spectacular from up there. On a clear night like this, with the full moon and all, you can see the entire L.A. basin all the way out to the Pacific. Wanta check it out?”

  “Love to.”

  I drove his car on the winding, narrow roads up to the peak so I wouldn't bark up dinner, and I knew where I was going, having come up many times to shoot pics. It was a shame I didn't have my camera with me. Lee and I took the dirt path to the mountain rim and a sparkling sea of glittering gold spread out before us. L.A.'s vastness can only be seen from above, and only on the rare clear days. I often ventured to high place around the city when a storm was clearing or when the Santa Ana's were up to get the full view of the ever expanding menagerie I lived in.

  “Oh my god,” Lee said softly, standing on the edge of the mountain surveying the scene. “This is surreal. I had no idea this was 20 minutes from my house.”

  “Yeah, well, don't get too excited. You get this view up here maybe three times a year. The rest of the time it's foggy or too smoggy to see anything.”

  “Well, it's beautiful now, but fucking freezing,” he said as he moved behind me, put his arms around me and pulled me in.

  His body warmed me, outside and in. We stood huddled together in the fierce wind staring at the sweeping view of millions of pulsating lights blanketing the earth to the horizon and out to the dark silver sea. The full moon reflected on the Pacific and revealed the broad curve of the Santa Monica Bay.

  “Thank you,” Lee whispered in my ear.

  “For what?”

  “For turning me on to things—places, even ideas, ways of thinking I'd never have gotten to on my own.”

  I turned to him then, gathered his face in my hands and pulled him in for a passionate, sensual, loving kiss, trying to communicate how very glad I was to be with him, how empowered he made me feel, valued, safe in his embrace.

  Lee fixed his eyes on mine when we separated, focused all his attention on me, into me. "I love you," he said with certainty.

  "I love you, too." The words left my mouth before they processed in my head. But when I heard them, I absolutely believed them to be true.

  ---

  Weeks passed in a radiant blur, sure to be our glory days, never again this new between us. We explored new places from Catalina Island to Death Valley, or visited favorites, like the outdoor Santa Monica Mall, then a walk along the cliff-side promenade overlooking the Pacific. Sometimes we'd just hang out, watch videos or play Tavli.

  He stayed at my house on Friday and Saturday nights, limiting sex to the weekends. It wasn't bad, exactly, but it still wasn't great either with him continually whining over my insistence he use a condom. We'd have intercourse without protection when he pledged his fidelity to me alone, in front of witnesses, along with signing a marriage contract that betrothed his loyalty forever.

  Lee became a regular at my family's functions. And we had a lot of them. Birthday parties, Purim, we even joined my sister and her husband for a few Friday night Shabbat dinners. And for the first time in as long as I could remember, they were...if not fun, at least entertaining. I wasn't the odd one out anymore, the single, sad, aging spinster. I was with Lee, and though still on the outside looking in at my family, I too, had a partner to shelter me.

  I thought of Lee constantly when he wasn't around— what he'd said the night before that was cute or made me laugh, his adorable baby face, his punk, Cheshire grin. When I'd go shopping with a friend, I'd look in men's wear, buy Lee a sweater I thought he'd like instead of getting clothing I needed. I looked forward to being with him the moment we parted, and felt safe, and on solid ground when we were together regardless of our city crumbling around us.

  Mid-March. The days were getting longer, warmer, the Rodney King trial hot, fueled by the media's coverage. Racial tension spiking throughout the city serving only reporters hungry for stories, which ironically they seemed to be creating.

  Graffiti covered the sides of most every overpass. KILL ALL WHITE in red spray paint four feet high and ten feet long was scrawled on a concrete wall bordering the 101 as we drove through Hollywood. I looked at Lee driving. He stared out the windshield, either not noticing or at least not acknowledging the threat. He was doing 80mph, weaving smoothly through all four lanes of traffic without braking while managing to keep distance from other cars. Lee was an excellent driver, one of very few I'd known. Still, I thought I might barf passing Tinsel Town on our way to see his buddy, Mitchell, after racquetball on Friday night.

  The giant glass cylinders of the Bonaventure H
otel appeared from behind the Union Bank tower as Lee got off the freeway and swung back over it on the 3rd Street off-ramp into downtown. Steel and glass office buildings lined the streets like any other city, but they were dwarfed compared to Manhattan. Between the skyscrapers were old brick buildings, though several of the office towers had been added directly on top of the old structures. But the most bizarre part about downtown Los Angeles was there was no one, literally no one walking on the streets.

  It was just past 6:30, and though the sun had set half hour ago the streetlights lit the ghost town in perpetual twilight. Wholesale, finance, light manufacturing and some state offices were mostly what happened during the day in downtown L.A. Depending on what sector you worked determined where you went home to, but no one stayed here. Most restaurants served the lunch crowd and closed at night. Street gangs, homeless, and artists renting lofts were the only consistent residents other than the endless influx of Latino immigrants.

  Mitchell's condo was on the 23rd floor of a skyscraper recently built across the street from the Music Center. It had been constructed, along with several other residents like it, when Mayor Bradley got it into his head that he could turn downtown L.A. into Manhattan West. For a year, maybe two, the price for a condo here was sky high, marketed as the new trendy place to live. That's when Mitchell had bought his. Unfortunately, it never caught on. No one wanted to live in a crime ridden, dirty, rat infested city. That's why they moved here from places like New York. The building Mitchell lived in was three quarter's empty. And now he couldn't sell it at even half the price he'd bought it for.

  Mitchell shared all this as I gazed out the floor to ceiling windows in his living room. It was dizzying up there. Downtown sparkled, the expansive city beyond twinkling endlessly outward to the blackness of the Pacific. "It's beautiful, Mitchell."

  "Well, I wouldn't want to be up here during an earthquake." Lee chimed in from the black leather couch.