Dreamspinner Press Year Six Greatest Hits

by JD Ruskin

  “In the flesh, which is, if possible, even finer than I remember it!”

  They heard a crash as whatever formerly fragile object Nestor had been handling met the tasteful porcelain tile on the floor. His manic shuffle announced his approach.

  “Ay, dios mío!” he murmured. “They are here.” He stood before them, arms open wide.

  Brandt and Donnelly were not sure if they were shopping, now, or having a family reunion. Were they supposed to hug him?

  Bryce reached out and lowered Nestor’s arms for him.

  “How can I—and my smitten shopboy—service you today, gentlemen?”

  “I need something for a business meeting,” Brandt explained.

  Bryce and Nestor both gasped.

  “You mean to say you have found success?” burbled Nestor. Then he squinted a bit at Bryce. “You did not have to do what you did not want to do to get the job so you can do what you want to do, did you?” he asked in such a rush that Brandt was not sure how to answer.

  “My virtue remained intact, if that’s what you mean,” he answered, which was mostly true.

  Nestor surely considered an intact virtue a total loss, but he nodded as if he were happy for Brandt.

  “And,” added Donnelly, “we need some new underwear. This guy’s”—he jerked his head at Brandt—“are awful.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know, honey,” cracked Bryce out of the side of his mouth. He led the foursome through the aisles.

  “How did you two end up here?” asked Donnelly, trying to give their guides something to focus on other than Brandt’s crotch, to which their eyes had been glued.

  “Well, it was just awful,” sighed Bryce.

  “Awful,” agreed Nestor.

  “That hag who owns the Store That Shall Not Be Named over there”—Bryce gestured to Camp & Dragg as if he were a zoo guide pointing out a dead caribou—“decided I was spending too much time helping people who need a more personal touch.”

  “You mean they fired you for spending too much time with customers?” Brandt asked.

  “No, for giving the blowjobs in the dressing room,” explained Nestor.

  “Ohhhh.” Both men nodded slowly while Bryce glared at his shopboy.

  Donnelly turned to Nestor. “And you? Cabana Boy seemed to be your niche.”

  “I was getting the blowjobs,” Nestor stated blandly.

  “And here we are!” announced Bryce, loudly enough to ensure that the previous conversation was now over. He and Nestor flew into action, gathering a pair of khakis, a tightly tailored shirt with delicate needlework, and accessories.

  “Don’t forget the underwear!” called Donnelly.

  “Oh, honey, we’ve been dreaming how we would wrap those goodies every night as we drift off to sleep!”

  Donnelly grunted. “My goodies need wrapping this time too,” he said, somewhat poutily.

  Bryce and Nestor froze, turned to look at the troopers, and then back to each other. They exchanged a nod.

  “Come now, to the fitting room!” Bryce called, as he and Nestor tore off to the back of the store.

  Donnelly and Brandt did as they were told.

  In the fitting room, Nestor laid out the ensemble they had chosen for Brandt’s outerwear, while Bryce arranged boxes of underwear into two piles. Nestor motioned for Brandt to try on the clothes, and he began stripping off. Again.

  This time, though, Brandt noticed that Donnelly was doing the same. He smiled to himself at how much this meant to him—a dressing room had been the site of his first horrible exposure, and being here with Donnelly was a way to recuperate that experience.

  Soon, they were both standing in just Brandt’s frumpy underwear.

  “Now,” gushed Bryce, “I have chosen pairs of undergarments that work together. For you”—he handed a box to Brandt—“a fine boxer to lay beautifully under the pant. It will cradle your manhood in incredible softness, just as I would do myself.”

  Brandt chuckled.

  “And for you,” he said to Donnelly, “In the same fabric, but with a more… aggressive cut.” He handed a box over.

  Bryce and Nestor stood back to await their reward.

  “You first,” said Donnelly.

  “Oh hell no. You first,” replied Brandt. “You’re the one who’s so excited about getting new undies.”

  Donnelly nodded at the truth of this statement. But instead of taking off his, he walked over to Brandt, slid his thumbs into the waistband of his boxer briefs, and yanked them down Brandt’s legs in one fluid motion. Brandt stood naked, the tacky drawers gathered around his ankles.

  Brandt, shocked, recovered quickly enough to reach over and give Donnelly the same treatment, though he took his time sliding the boxers down his partner’s legs. Then the two men stood, completely nude, facing one another.

  “I just came,” announced Bryce in a loud whisper to Nestor.

  Brandt reached down for the underwear Bryce had chosen for him, and Donnelly mirrored his motions as he pulled them on. They stood back up and turned to see how they looked. Standing side-by-side, they made a beautiful pair. Brandt was a bit darker and more heavily muscled, but Donnelly’s sinewy build was executed in flawless porcelain.

  The two men looked at themselves, and then Brandt stole a glance at Donnelly. He noticed two things: first, Donnelly had a body, something he had never fully appreciated before; second, Donnelly was looking at him while he looked at Donnelly. Their eyes met, and a flickering spark of understanding flowed between them. Matching smirks appeared at the corners of their mouths.

  “I could die right now,” murmured Nestor. “No, wait. I call my mother to tell her I seen God, and then I die.”

  Bryce, however, was looking silently at the men—not their matching middle parts, but their faces. Suddenly, his face brightened and a smile exploded across his face.

  “Oh my God! You two have finally figured it out!”

  Brandt and Donnelly turned away from the mirror to look at Bryce, to try and understand what he meant.

  Bryce was beaming at them like the mother of the bride. His hands flew up to his face, as if he was trying to stifle a cry, and then he rushed at them, wrapping his arms around their necks and pulling them together.

  “Welcome, my dears! I am so happy for you!” He hugged them harder. “Welcome home!”

  Brandt and Donnelly exchanged a bewildered look behind Bryce’s back.

  When Bryce finished hugging and giggling and exclaiming, though never explaining, Brandt tried on the outfit (perfect, as usual) and they got dressed again—minus the old dorky underwear, of course. They bought the entire pile Bryce had brought, and wore the ones they had tried on. They meant to throw out the old ones, but when they looked around for them on the floor of the fitting room, they were nowhere to be seen.

  Bryce rang up their purchases, and Nestor put them into bags (featuring a model wearing a tasteful office ensemble on one side, and the same model tastefully naked on the other) and handed them across the counter.

  “I hope we’ll be seeing more of you gentlemen,” Bryce said.

  “I think you’ve seen everything we’ve got,” Brandt replied.

  “I’ve seen enough to know that I’ll be seeing more,” said Bryce with a wink. Donnelly giggled awkwardly at this, the import of which was lost on Brandt.

  “Please,” said Nestor, shaking their hands, “Please come back to us when we can be doing anything to help you.” It suddenly seemed as though they were being sent on a momentous journey of some kind. The seriousness of Nestor’s manner, however, was shattered by the waistband of Brandt’s old underwear protruding from his jacket pocket. Brandt just shook his head, and Donnelly tried to stifle a laugh.

  BACK ON the sidewalk, they blinked in the afternoon sun.

  “How about we drop these at the car and then grab a late lunch?” Brandt asked.

  “Sounds good. There’s a place right by where we parked that looked nice.”

  As they walked, Brandt
remarked, “You know, it’s funny. Every time we’ve been here I only wanted to get the stuff we needed and get the hell out. Today, though, it’s different.”

  “Yeah,” replied Donnelly. “It’s different.”

  The restaurant near the car, Stickley and Greene, was done up in an early-twentieth century arts and crafts look. It took a moment for their eyes to adjust to the rather dim light emanating from the Frank Lloyd Wright-style sconces along the wall. Behind an imposing podium in a craftsman style with art deco flourishes stood the maitre d’, beaming expectantly at them as they approached.

  “Two this evening?” he asked.

  Two. The two of us. Two together. Just a couple of guys. A couple.

  “Yes,” answered Donnelly, stepping in to cover for Brandt’s deer-in-the-headlights look.

  “Excellent,” came the murmured response, as if praising the men for their good sense in choosing his restaurant. “This way, please.”

  He led them through the warmly lit dining area to a table at its center. It was in the middle of a raised platform which it shared with four other tables.

  “Will this be fine, or would you prefer something more private?” asked the maitre d’, the faintest whiff of insinuation emanating from his arched brow.

  “Oh, no, this is fine,” blurted Brandt, desperate not to be thought of as the kind of people who needed privacy.

  “Very good, then,” soothed the maitre d’, handing menus to the men as they sat down. “Cameron will be with you shortly. Enjoy your meal, gentlemen.”

  If breakfast had felt like a first date, then this felt like a first prom date. Brandt looked around the room, sweeping it as his training had made instinctual, and saw without surprise that the patrons were almost exclusively men. Some older, some younger, and some older with younger, but men all around.

  Their eyes met over the table.

  “Nice place, huh?” said Donnelly, who was smiling with such clear innocent happiness that Brandt had to chuckle.

  “Yeah, it is,” he said, taking a sip of water. “It’s just….”

  Donnelly waited for the rest of the thought to emerge, but it wasn’t coming. “Just what?” he asked.

  “I was thinking about the last time we were in a restaurant around here, and how strange it felt. Now, though, I don’t know… it’s… I’m not sure how to describe it.”

  “You mean the feeling you get when you know that the waiter isn’t going to throw the check at you like that battle-axe did this morning?” laughed Donnelly.

  “Yeah, that’s what I meant. Ugh, what a horrible thing that was.”

  “Good evening, gentlemen!”

  Cameron had arrived. There must be, Brandt reflected, some kind of factory deep under Alta Avenue where they manufacture the staff for their stores and restaurants. Cameron, like Bryce and Nestor and Andy, and everyone else Brandt had seen here, was a specimen of male beauty—in this case a carefully tousled, stubble-jawed Adonis in a white button-down and an art-glass-print tie.

  “Can I offer you a drink to start?”

  Brandt ordered his usual, a gin and tonic, and Donnelly chose the drink that Will and Lucas had introduced him to, a whiskey sour.

  “I think you threw him with your drink order,” said Donnelly as Cameron glided away.

  “What? How did I do that?”

  “The gays order by brand name. You know, like ‘Tanqueray and tonic’ or ‘Sapphire and tonic.’ That kind of thing.”

  “Oh, so now you’re the protocol officer for the gay community?” teased Brandt. “Should I also specify the brand of tonic water, and the size of the ice cubes I’d like ever so delicately dropped into the glass from a height of exactly 7.5 inches? How about the kind of cologne the bartender should be wearing when he mixes it?”

  “Now you’re being ridiculous,” said Donnelly with a roll of his eyes.

  Their drinks arrived shortly, and without even thinking about it, Brandt lifted his glass. It had been his habit to clink glasses with Donnelly and make some silly toast, even if it was just shot glasses of Jäger and the toast was “Friday night, fuck yeah!” But now he suddenly realized he had no idea what to say.

  “To the beginning,” Donnelly announced in a nearly serious tone.

  Brandt looked at his partner, holding his glass aloft, lit by the flickering candles on the table, a sparkle in his eyes, and he felt a warmth rush over him, enveloping him.

  “To the beginning,” he agreed. “Fuck yeah.”

  They touched their glasses, and they drank and smiled at each other without the need for further words.

  Cameron returned to take their orders.

  “He’ll have,” Brandt said, nodding slightly at Donnelly while a sly grin played around his mouth, “the hanger steak, with red potatoes, and could they crumble a little bacon on them?”

  “Yes, of course,” Cameron answered. He had pegged them for a first-date couple, but no one would do that on a first date. He played along. “And for him?” he asked Donnelly, smiling his impossibly white teeth expectantly.

  “I believe my friend here will have… yes, he’ll have the salmon on watercress—but with the jalapeño-caper aioli on the side—and the grilled peppers.”

  “Excellent choices, gentlemen,” murmured Cameron, clearly charmed by these two so much in love.

  Donnelly looked at Brandt a bit squintily.

  “Well, that was fun—did I do okay?”

  “Of course you did. You know I never pass up a good salmon. And that aioli gives me the willies. I mean, mayo with stuff in it—what’s that about?”

  Donnelly laughed and shook his head.

  They sipped their drinks and looked at each other for a long moment.

  “So,” Brandt finally offered, looking quickly side to side, “Is this weird?”

  “Why would it be weird?”

  “Because we’re like, I don’t know… on a kind of date?”

  Donnelly sipped his drink, then looked at Brandt, the corner of his mouth tucked up in an ironic grin.

  “We’ve known each other, what, two years and a bit?”

  Brandt nodded.

  “And in that time, how many days have gone by that we didn’t see each other?”

  Brandt considered this for a moment.

  “Well, there was that time about six months ago that you spent a week with your sister.”

  “That was when Delilah was born,” recalled Donnelly.

  “And there was the time I went home for Christmas, but just for a day.”

  “So, we’ve been together all but eight days out of the last two years. You are the first person I see in the morning, the last one at night, and the only one I can really talk to.” He paused to finish off his drink. “Forget dating, we’ve been married for two years. We just didn’t know it.”

  Brandt laughed, raised his glass to Donnelly, and drained it.

  They were finishing their second drinks when the food arrived. It was not the kind of food they often allowed themselves, more perhaps out of the image of the cop than limitations of budget, but it was exquisitely presented and perfectly prepared.

  “Oh, my God,” breathed Donnelly as he tried the first bite of his steak. “You have to try this!”

  “It cannot be as amazing as this salmon, I’m telling you,” replied Brandt.

  Donnelly reached his fork over to Brandt, presenting him the perfect morsel of his dinner; Brandt, seeing this, did the same with his.

  Through their delighted laughter, Brandt flashed back to the scene in the diner this morning, when Donnelly fed him a bite of pancake. The flush of shame came roaring back, and instinctively his eyes swept the room, looking for potential threats. No one seemed to have noticed them.

  They ate a few more bites, and then Cameron arrived at their table with two wine glasses and a bottle.

  Brandt looked at Donnelly questioningly; he got a shrug in return.

  “Um,” said Brandt tentatively, “We didn’t order any wine.”

  �
��Well, this,” said Cameron as he expertly stripped off the covering on the cork and skewered it with his opener, “is a gift from the gentlemen at that table.” He nodded over to a booth along the side wall of the restaurant. “They wish me to present it with their compliments, and to tell you that you remind them of themselves when they met.”

  They looked to the side and saw two older men with salt-and-pepper hair smiling at them. They were holding hands across the table. Stunned, Brandt and Donnelly nodded their thanks.

  Cameron poured, wrapped the bottle, and left the men to their suddenly more public dinner.

  “You know, we’re really not in Kansas anymore,” Brandt chuckled as he lifted his glass.

  “Congratulations, my friend,” toasted Donnelly, raising his glass to Brandt. “A Dorothy reference means that you are officially a member of Gay Club.”

  Brandt made a chivalrous bow to his partner, acknowledging the accolade.

  THEY FINISHED dinner, and then walked back to Donnelly’s car. It was only once they had pulled away from the curb that they realized they had no idea where they were going.

  “Want to go to my place?” Donnelly asked. He lived in a bungalow left to him by his aunt when she retired to a warmer clime a couple of years ago. It had been a rental for many years, but she didn’t want to try to maintain it from so far away, and so she simply signed it over to Donnelly. It wasn’t much to look at, but he liked it far more than any apartment he might have been able to afford.

  “Sure,” replied Brandt. His apartment, the site of their bizarre confrontation last night, was not where he wanted to be right now as he basked in the glow of their dinner together.

  During the short drive to Donnelly’s house, located in an older neighborhood just outside the city center, Brandt spent most of his time looking at Donnelly, wondering how they had managed to get to this point, wondering what they now were to each other. Donnelly, for his part, wondered why Brandt was staring at him. Had he done something wrong?

  They pulled up in front of his cottage and walked up to the front door as they had so many times before. Indeed, when Brandt’s apartment was fumigated a year ago (thanks to a globetrotting pharmaceutical rep upstairs and the particularly virulent bugs he had brought back from one of his travels), he had even crashed here for a week. Donnelly unlocked the door and they stepped inside.