Strawberries for Dessert

by Marie Sexton

  The next morning, I got up and went for my usual morning run and then showered. He was still sleeping when I came out of the bathroom. The sheets covered him to his waist. He was facing away from me. I could see only cinnamon-colored hair, a bare back, and narrow shoulders. His caramel skin looked even darker than usual against the clean white sheets.

  I was surprised at how my desire for him only seemed to grow.

  With other partners, the excitement often waned. But not with him. Not yet, at any rate. I dropped my towel and climbed naked onto the bed behind him. I pushed up against him. As always, his hair smelled like strawberries. I kissed the back of his neck and ran my hand down his soft stomach.

  “Mmm…” he mumbled sleepily. “If it’s before six, I’ll never forgive you.”

  “It’s almost seven.”

  He stretched, leaning back against me. “Mmm…” he said again, but this time it sounded less like sleepiness and more like arousal. “In that case….”

  I moved the sheet out of the way so I could press my growing erection against him, and he moaned. He let me push him on to his stomach and spread his legs so that I could wedge myself between them. I loved the way he felt when he was flat underneath me like this.

  His body was thin and seemed delicate, and yet I knew from experience that he was not the least bit fragile or timid when it came to sex. I kissed the back of his neck, flicking my tongue over that butterfly mark that always seemed to call to me. “I love the way your hair smells,” I told him, and he laughed breathlessly.

  I slid my hand underneath him, down to his erection. He arched his back, pushing his hips back against me. I had really only meant to tease him a little, but the pressure on my groin made me suddenly want to do more—and quickly. I wrapped my hand around his shaft and started to stroke him.

  “More,” he whispered.

  “Tell me what you want,” I said, keeping my strokes light and slow.

  “What I always want,” he said. He thrust his hips back against me again, causing my breath to catch in my throat in anticipation. “Hurry.”

  I was glad to hear that I wasn’t the only one feeling a sense of urgency. I reached for the drawer next to the bed where the condoms and lube were, and—

  My doorbell rang.

  “You have got to be kidding,” he said with obvious frustration, and I laughed. “Who on earth would be ringing your doorbell this time of the morning?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Probably Julia.”

  “What a shame,” he moaned. “I rather thought I liked her, too.”

  I was debating ignoring the doorbell, but he abruptly pushed me off of him, rolling away and causing me to fall off the bed. I landed in an inelegant pile on the floor. He didn’t even look back. “You can make it up to me after breakfast,” he said as he headed for the bathroom.

  So much for ignoring the doorbell.

  I dressed quickly and opened the door, hoping Julia wouldn’t notice the telltale bulge in my pants that wasn’t quite covered by my shirt. But it wasn’t Julia on my porch. It was my father.

  On the bright side, my erection went away in a hurry.

  “Dad!” I said in alarm. “What are you doing here?”

  He held up a bag from the local donut shop. “I was in the area and thought I’d stop by for breakfast.”

  “Oh,” I said stupidly, because I wasn’t sure what else to say. I was wondering if there was any chance of getting rid of him before Cole came out of the bedroom or of convincing Cole to stay in the bedroom until my dad left. It wasn’t as if my dad didn’t know that I was gay, but he rarely had to face it so head-on, and it always made him uncomfortable.

  “I didn’t wake you up, did I?” he asked. “You’re usually up early.”

  “No, I was awake.”

  “Good.” We stood there for a moment staring awkwardly at one another, and he finally said, “Jon, are you going to let me in?”

  Shit! Why was my brain suddenly short-circuiting? “Of course,” I said, and moved aside for him.

  He looked at me suspiciously as he came in and headed for the dining room table. “Do you have any coffee?” he asked.

  “I was just about to make some.”

  “Is something wrong, Jon?” he asked. “Did I interrupt something?”

  I was debating coming clean and telling him there was a naked man in my bed, but Cole put my out of my misery by choosing that very moment to come walking out of my bedroom. He had his pants on, although they weren’t buttoned, and he was just pulling his shirt on over his head. My dad’s jaw dropped, and I felt my cheeks turning bright red.

  “Oh shit,” I said.

  “Oh my God,” my dad said.

  “Oh hello there!” Cole said, advancing on my dad with a perfectly benign, open smile. “I’m Cole.” He stopped in front of my dad with his hand out. My dad just stood there with his mouth open, staring dumbly at him.

  “Cole, this is my father, George.”

  “Hello, George,” Cole said. “It’s nice to meet you.” He still had his hand out, and my father was staring at it like he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. I could see the look in Cole’s eyes slowly changing from his usual mocking humor to something much more guarded. He slowly pulled his hand back. He put it on his hip, and cocked his other hip out. He flipped his hair back out of his eyes. I could almost see him putting on each little piece of his affectation like some kind of suit.

  “Well, lovey,” he said to me, although he was still looking at my dad.

  “I wish you had told me you were still in the closet.”

  “I’m not,” I said. I grabbed the closest thing I could find, which happened to be that morning’s folded up newspaper, and threw it across the table at my father. “Dad!”

  It smacked into the back of his head, and he jumped about a foot.

  But it did the trick. “I’m sorry,” he blurted out. “I’m George Kechter.”

  He held out his hand, rather belatedly. Cole stood there eyeing him suspiciously for a moment, but then shook his hand.

  “Nice to meet you, George,” he repeated. He eyed the bag of donuts on the table with obvious distaste before turning to me. “I was going to make breakfast, but I think it might be best if I was on my way.”

  “Cole, I’m sorry—” I started to say, but he smiled at me.

  “No worries, lovey. Give me a minute.”

  My father and I sat down on opposite sides of the table, not looking at each other. He was staring resolutely at the tabletop. I watched Cole as he went into the bedroom, came back out, found his shoes and his keys. All I could think about was how much I wished my father had waited another ten or fifteen minutes before ringing my doorbell. I was fairly certain, given the amount of urgency Cole and I had both been feeling, that would have been enough time.

  He stopped at the door and held his hand up to his ear, thumb and little finger extended, in the universal sign for “call me.” Or knowing him, it meant, “I’ll call.” I nodded, and then he was gone.

  Once the front door closed, my father finally looked up at me, his cheeks red with embarrassment.

  “What was he doing here?”

  I couldn’t help but grin at him. “Do you really want the details, Dad?”

  His blush deepened and he looked away. “No!”

  “I’m sorry if we made you uncomfortable.”

  “I didn’t expect you to have company.”

  “I didn’t expect you to show up on my porch unannounced at seven o’clock on a Saturday morning.”

  He was quiet for a minute, fidgeting with the donut bag. I knew he wanted to say something, and I waited. Finally he sighed. “He’s not really your type, is he, Jon?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, challenging him. Of course I knew exactly what he meant, but I had no intention of making this easy for him.

  “Well,” he said defensively, “he’s a little….”

  He let his sentence trail away. “Yes?” I prompted. “A lit
tle what?”

  “A little… fruity.” I felt myself bristle at that, but said nothing.

  “Is he your boyfriend?”

  I debated how to answer that. “Not exactly.”

  “So it was a one night stand?” he asked, and there was no mistaking the disgust in his voice.

  “Which would offend you least, Dad?” I asked, fighting to keep my irritation in check. “Hearing that he was a one-night hook-up or hearing that I was in a relationship with him?”

  He looked down at the table, and I could see the shame on his face. He wasn’t ashamed of me. He was ashamed of himself. He tried very hard to be understanding of my homosexuality. Sometimes he succeeded. “I’m not sure,” he admitted. He looked back up at me.

  “Why don’t you just tell me the truth?”

  “The truth,” I told him, “is somewhere in between.”

  He sighed. “I suppose it usually is.” He didn’t seem to have anything else to say, so I went in the kitchen and started the coffee brewing, then came back out with napkins. He took a donut out and handed the bag to me across the table. “Are you seeing anybody else?” he asked. He was once again avoiding my gaze, looking only at the tabletop.

  “No. There’s only him right now.”

  “Jon, I know you’re an adult—”

  “I’m glad you noticed.”

  “—and it’s none of my business—”

  “You’re right about that.”

  “—but I just hope you’re being careful.”

  That wasn’t what I was expecting, and it quelled my anger in a hurry. It took me a moment to respond. “Don’t worry, Dad,” I finally said, and he smiled.

  “Okay,” he said with obvious relief. “So, how about that coffee?”

  THE following Friday I was working at the office when I received a message that Marcus needed to talk to me. I found him in his office, finishing off a greasy hamburger and fries. “Marcus? You wanted to see me?”

  “I did! Come in, Jon. Close the door.” I sat across from him and waited for him to throw away the remains of his lunch. It still smelled like fast food in his office. “Jon,” he finally said, “I wanted to talk to you about the restructuring.”

  “Restructuring?” I asked stupidly. Of course, Marcus had told me back in May that our CEO was considering something like that, but after five months with no further mention of it, I had assumed that it wasn’t going to happen. Now that it was coming up again, I found myself dreading the idea.

  “Monty wants to go through with it. It won’t actually go into effect for a few more months. There are other things that need to be put into place first. But I wanted you to know that it’s definitely coming down the line.”

  “Meaning that I’ll have to relocate?”

  “Probably. I’m not sure yet how we’ll decide who gets which territory, but I wanted to meet with each of you and find out if you have a preference.”

  “What were they again?”

  “Arizona. San Diego, LA, San Francisco. Vegas, Colorado, and Utah.”

  “Well, obviously my first choice is Arizona.” But I also had to assume that was everybody’s first choice.

  “What about the rest?”

  What about the rest? Anywhere in California was acceptable to me. I knew my way around Vegas, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to live there. The idea of Utah scared me. And Colorado? Well, Colorado was a whole different issue.

  Colorado was where I had gone to college. Colorado was where I had met Zach and spent three years loving him. Colorado was where I left him and spent another year of my life waiting for him to come back to me. And Colorado was where he still lived to this day, with his new partner—the partner he loved more than he had ever loved me.

  I knew it was foolish, but the thought of going back was unbearable. Yes, it was a big state. If I moved there for work, I would undoubtedly be living in Denver. Zach and Angelo lived in the mountains now. Chances of me seeing them at all were almost non- existent. On the other hand, chances of me running into them while in Vegas were probably equally slim, and yet, it had still happened.

  The fact remained that, right or wrong, logical or not, moving back to Colorado would feel like a step in the wrong direction. It was linked in my mind in every way possible to my life with Zach, and it was a life I was never getting back. Somehow, being in a different state, I could accept that he had moved on. But if I were there, knowing that he was only an hour away, I wasn’t sure I would be able to keep my mind off of him. I wasn’t sure that I would be able to stop myself from seeking him out. It would be selfish and self-deluding. Zach had made it quite clear that he wanted nothing more to do with me. And Angelo would kick my ass as soon as look at me, with Matt to back him up just for good measure. And Jared would simply smile and ask about Cole.

  And Cole….

  Well, there was also Cole. But I knew that I was nothing more to him than a convenient bed buddy, so I couldn’t allow him to be a factor in my decision. And of course there was my dad to consider too.

  “Jon?” Marcus asked, pulling me abruptly from my thoughts.

  “What do you think?”

  “Not Colorado,” I said to him. “Anywhere but Colorado.”

  He nodded. “As I said before, I don’t know yet how we’ll decide, but I’ll keep your request in mind.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ll let you know as soon as I know more. But nothing in this place happens quickly, Jon. For now at least, it’s business as usual.”

  Date: October 10

  From: Cole

  To: Jared

  I’m making cioppino tonight, which really should go with Tempranillo.

  Of course I’ll have to buy the Barbera instead, because every time I buy a Spanish red, Jonathan starts to sulk. It’s not that I’m jealous of Zach for being Jonathan’s ex. I just wish his memory didn’t have to join us for dinner quite so often. I hate having to compete with nostalgia.

  I CAME home that afternoon to a house that smelled like seafood and Cole barefoot in my kitchen.

  “Are you busy tomorrow night?” I asked him.

  He glanced slyly at me. “I don’t know, love. What are you offering?”

  “I have tickets to see Wicked.” It was the first time in months that I would actually be in town to use my own seats at the show, and I was looking forward to it.

  “Two gay men going to the theater?” he teased. “Such a stereotype, isn’t it?”

  “You know, I’ve never understood that,” I answered as I opened the wine that was sitting on the counter. “I go to the theater every chance I get, and I can tell you, the vast majority of the men there are straight. Believe me,” I said, smiling at him, “I look!”

  “I’m sure you do,” he laughed. “It doesn’t matter to me. I’d love to go.”

  “Good. How long until dinner’s ready?”

  “Long enough for you to shower, if that’s what you were going to ask.”

  I emerged from the bathroom ten minutes later to find him sitting on the bed, grinning at me. He was giving me that look through his hair that told me he was laughing at me for something. “Hey, sweetie,” he said. “Did you forget something?”

  “I don’t think so. Why?”

  “Your phone rang while you were in the shower.” I picked my cell phone up off of the dresser to check it, but he said, “Not that one.

  Your landline. I hope it wasn’t terribly inappropriate of me to answer for you.”

  “That’s fine. Who was it?”

  “Your father.”

  “My father?” And then I realized why he was laughing at me. I was supposed to have dinner with my father tonight. “Shit! It’s his birthday!” I checked my watch. I was already ten minutes late. If I hurried, I could make it to the restaurant in another twenty, but I also knew that Cole had dinner halfway ready. “Cole, I—”

  “Relax,” he said in that mocking tone. “We realized you must have had your days mixed up, so—”

  “Was he a
ngry?”

  “I don’t think so, but I dare say I don’t know your father—”

  “I should call him back.”

  “Honey, just wait and talk to him in person. He’ll be here in five minutes.”

  “What?”

  Now he looked even more amused. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible if I hadn’t seen it myself. “I’ve been trying to tell you, sweetie, but you won’t keep quiet long enough listen to me. He was already on this end of town, and he obviously wanted to see you, and there’s plenty of cioppino—”

  “You invited him over?”

  “Is that not what I’ve just been saying?”

  I was trying to imagine the conversation between the two of them—Cole talking non-stop, calling my father “darling,” and my dad trying to keep up. “And he said yes?”

  “Of course.” I had a feeling he just hadn’t been able to come up with an excuse quickly enough to get out of it. “It’s not a problem, is it?”

  “I’m not sure it’s a great idea, that’s all. My dad isn’t very comfortable with my sexuality, and—” Right then, the doorbell rang. I definitely would have preferred to answer it myself, but I realized I was still standing there wearing nothing but a towel. Cole smiled at me again.

  “Don’t worry, sweetie. I’ll get it.”

  I got dressed quickly, telling myself the entire time that it would be fine. There was no reason to assume that dinner would be a disaster.

  When I came out of the bedroom, I found that Cole had managed to shepherd my father straight into the dining room, where he had already set the table. Cole was talking a mile a minute. And my father?

  My father had a look on his face that was part shock and part horror. It would have been comical if it didn’t confirm what I had already suspected. This was not going to be fun.

  “George, I’m so sorry to have stolen your son away on your birthday,” Cole was saying to him. “I never would have hijacked him like I did if I had known. But this is nicer, anyway. Restaurants can be so noisy and impersonal. This will be much more intimate, don’t you think? We’re having cioppino, but I think I told you that already. It makes the whole house smell like fish for a week, but it’s so good, I make it anyway. I sure hope you don’t have a shellfish allergy, honey.