Second Hand

by Heidi Cullinan

  I was surprised when I pulled up in front of my house to find Stacey’s car in the driveway. I hadn’t talked to her since the night she’d come to my house crying. I wasn’t sure how I felt about seeing her again now. The question was, which Stacey would I find? The one who missed me, or the one who’d told me not to call again?

  She apparently still had a key and had let herself in, because the front door was unlocked. “Hello?” I called as I walked in.

  “Paul?” she called back from the direction of the kitchen. I could tell by her voice that she was unhappy about something. “Where’s the panini press?”

  I groaned. I didn’t want to see the look on her face when I told her I’d sold everything. I went into the bedroom instead and started changing my clothes.

  “Paul?” she said again. She was getting closer.

  Maybe I could escape out the window.

  “Paul?” she said, this time from the door of the bedroom. “Answer me. Where’s my panini press?”

  “Your panini press?” I said as I tossed my soiled shirt into the hamper. “If it’s yours, then it must be at your house.” I yanked a clean shirt off the hanger in the closet. “Or maybe it’s at Larry’s.”

  “Don’t be a smartass, Paul. I came by to pick it up, and it’s gone.”

  “I sold it.”

  “You what?”

  “You heard me.” I started to unbutton my pants, but stopped to glare at her. “Do you mind? I’m trying to change.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Give me a break. As if I’ve never seen you without your pants.”

  Of course that was true, but it still annoyed me to have her standing there, glaring at me with her arms crossed. I took my pants and went in the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind me.

  “And what about all the other stuff?” she asked from the other side of the door. “The cappuccino maker and the bread machine?”

  “I sold those too.”

  “You had no right to do that, Paul. Those were my things!”

  “Your things?” I was done changing clothes, and I opened the door to face her. “Your things? They’ve been here for months! You left them here, Stacey. Just like you left me.”

  This caught her off guard, but only for a second. “Still—”

  “You left me here in this shitty fucking house to make a rent payment that my paycheck barely covers. You moved right in with Larry. God knows how long you’d been fucking him before you finally left. And now you show up at my house and let yourself in with a key you should have left behind, and you say I had ‘no right’ to sell your fucking panini press? The panini press I bought for you for our anniversary?”

  She took a step backward, her mouth a small round O of surprise. In all of our years together, I’d never been as angry at her as I was at this moment. I’m not sure I’d ever been this angry in my life.

  “I’m leaving now,” I told her. “And so are you. And I suggest you leave your key behind, because the next time I come home and find you here without my permission, I’m calling the cops.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Paul. How dare you?”

  “If there’s anything else you want,” I said, “anything you actually think you have a right to, you’d better take it now. Otherwise, get the fuck out.”

  To my surprise, she didn’t argue. She took one thing from the pantry: the turkey fryer. I was pretty sure it was more an attempt to annoy me than because she wanted it.

  She left her key on the kitchen table.

  I should have felt victorious, but I didn’t. I was mad, but the chipmunk worried its hands, urging me to run after her and apologize. I was almost ready to do that, but what I saw when I finally opened my front door made things worse. Bill was in his yard. He’d put up a strange little decorative hook. It held a bright flag that said Happy Fourth of July. He was standing at the curb, talking to Velma.

  Except her name was Lorraine.

  “It’s cute as can be,” I heard her say, though she looked right at me, cheeks flushed with her triumph as she preened at her new contest favorite. “If you put in a few more flowers by the porch, and maybe a birdbath—”

  “That’s a great idea,” he said.

  She kept walking, and Bill watched her go, bouncing a little on his feet. He looked over at me. He was practically gloating.

  Goddamn Bill and his cute little flag and the motherfucking Curb Appeal contest. I had no doubt he’d have a birdbath by Sunday. And what did I have?

  I looked out at my lawn, which suddenly seemed far less inviting than it had.

  All I had was the fucking Detroit Daisy and a goddamned one-legged chicken.

  “I told you to take whatever you thought was yours,” I mumbled.

  It took a significant amount of effort to wrangle the chicken into the backseat of my old Volvo, its head or top or whatever the apex of it was sticking out of the rear window like a demented dog. Bill watched me from his lawn, frowning slightly. I didn’t really know what I thought I was doing with the damn thing. I only knew I wanted it gone.

  That seemed like enough, right up until I pushed my way through the door of El’s shop with the thing propped precariously on my shoulder. It was damn heavy.

  “What the fuck is that?” El asked as I set it down. MoJo came running over to investigate. I half hoped she’d pee on it.

  “It’s art,” I said.

  “Only in Hacktown.” He raised his eyebrows and scratched the back of his head, and I noticed his hair was damp, like he’d taken a shower. “I know I adopted this damn dog, but I’m not sure I can take that monstrosity.”

  “I don’t care what you do with it,” I said. “I just don’t want to have to see it every day.”

  He pursed his lips, as if thinking it over. “Well, I’ll figure something out.” He smiled at me. “You ready to go?”

  “Sure.”

  He took a bright piece of fabric that looked almost like a giant purse from a hook behind him. He looped it over his head. “What is that?” I asked.

  “It’s a baby sling. Couple of years ago, I thought I’d start a maternity department. Turns out nobody wants to buy baby stuff from a pawnshop. I still had this lying around.”

  He whistled at MoJo. She ran to him, clambering expertly up the staircase of stereo equipment to the countertop. El held the sling open, and she climbed inside. After a bit of squirming and turning, she finally settled down against him. Only her head stuck out of the sling. She was panting happily up at him.

  “You look ridiculous,” I said.

  “Says the man with the one-legged chicken.”

  He had a point.

  I waited for him to lock the door, then followed him down the street. “What’s got you all riled up?” he asked.

  “Is it that obvious?”

  He shrugged.

  “Stacey came by.”

  “Ah,” he sighed. “Enough said.”

  We were silent the rest of the way. He finally led me into a small, dark bar. “The food here’s better than you might think,” he said. “But it’s better out back, on the patio.”

  “No dogs allowed,” the bartender yelled as El led me past.

  “Good to know,” El said. But he didn’t stop, and the bartender waved him on. I had the feeling he hadn’t expected El to pay any attention.

  The patio was surrounded by a wrought iron fence. El let MoJo out of her sling. There were four tables, one of which was occupied by two women who immediately went gaga over the dog.

  “The bartender said no dogs,” I worried.

  “I know the owner,” El said. “He won’t mind.”

  I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until I started looking over the menu. Everything sounded good.

  “Will you share a pizza with me?” I asked El.

  His eyes danced and he winked at me. “I’ll do anything you like.”

  I blushed and ducked my head. The waitress arrived, saving me from my embarrassment. I ordered the pizza and El ordered drinks—a Coke for
himself, but a rum and Coke for me.

  “Keep them coming,” he said to the waitress. “My friend’s had a bad day.”

  For better or worse, the waitress obliged.

  By the time El and Paul finished the pizza, Paul had also polished off three rum and Cokes. When asked if he wanted to go home or to Lights Out, he grinned drunkenly and slurred something about dancing. It was the first time in El’s life that dancing sounded like the best idea ever.

  El went to the other end of the patio, called Rosa, and begged and pleaded with her to take MoJo until the morning. After a quick stop by her house, where he admitted that yes, he was on a date, El escorted Paul past the line to the front door of the bar. Ignoring Denver’s pointed look, he tightened his grip on Paul’s hand and led him to the dance floor.

  Intellectually and probably morally, El knew he should switch Paul to water, but it hadn’t escaped his notice that the more alcohol he let Paul take in, the more Paul leaned on him and the heavier Paul’s hands rested on El’s hips while they danced. Plus, Drunk Paul laughed. A lot. Beautifully.

  “This is so much fun,” Paul said for the tenth time as they sank against the bar near the stairs leading to Jase’s office. “I haven’t been dancing in . . .” He looked confused for a moment, then laughed. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever danced like this.”

  “That’s because you haven’t had the right partner.” El made the comment lighthearted, but his solar plexus felt like it was trying to explode. Insanity burst through that dam anyway, making him add, “Of course, you haven’t really been dancing at Lights Out until you’ve made out on the dance floor.”

  Though El was ready for Paul to shut down at that, or make a disgusted face, or miss his point entirely as usual, Paul’s response was an almost feral grin. “You’ve kissed me before. As a joke, I know. But you kissed me.”

  It hadn’t been a joke. “Oh?”

  Paul’s grin widened and he put his hand on El’s thigh, sending the blood from El’s head straight to his cock. “Did you know you weren’t the first guy who kissed me?”

  Suddenly El didn’t have knees. “Oh?”

  “The neighbor boy. In high school.” Paul’s hand massaged El’s thigh. “Dean. We kissed and rubbed against each other until we came in our underwear.”

  “Jesus.” El started to shake. A little more of this talk and young Paul and Dean wouldn’t be the only ones who’d creamed their pants.

  Paul’s hand stilled as he tilted his head to the side and sobered. “El, are you gay?”

  El would have laughed if he’d had enough air left in his lungs to do it. “Yeah.”

  Paul bit his lip, looking guilty. El wanted to pull that lip out and bite it himself. While jacking Paul’s cock. “So would you mind?”

  Mind jacking his cock? Biting his lip? Hell no. “Huh?”

  Paul’s blush about did El in. “Kissing me. On the dance floor.”

  El was so far down the rabbit hole, the world was upside-down. He never wanted it to go right-side-up again. “Sure.”

  Pulse pounding in time to the music, El led Paul back out to the dance floor, his cocky smile the only marker of nerves as he pulled Paul in tight against his body. El wanted to put his hand down the back of Paul’s jeans, but he settled for taking firm hold of his ass and pulling him up against his own erection.

  Oh, God, Paul was hard. So hard El could feel his cock thick and heavy as it pressed against his own through their clothes.

  Swallowing the glib excuse he’d prepared, the pathetic out so he could pretend he didn’t want to do this, El admitted, at least to himself, that kissing Paul in this moment meant everything in the world to him. He was hard. Paul was hard. They both wanted it.

  So El kissed him.

  Really kissed him, stealing deep inside with his tongue, every nerve ending in his body going wild as he took his first slick, rum-and-Coke taste of Paul. When Paul went slack, El dove in again, deeper this time, mating with Paul’s tongue like his life depended on it. Drawing back, he nipped hard enough on Paul’s bottom lip to make him squeak, then went in for a third time.

  They kissed on the dance floor, and everything was right. El kept his hands on Paul’s ass and kissed him until they both lost their knees. El’s hands slid up underneath Paul’s T-shirt, stuttering against his sweaty skin until he started kneading at the slight muscles of Paul’s back. Eventually, one palm did make it under Paul’s waistband, seeking the soft, sweet flesh of his now-quivering backside, while the fingers of El’s other hand found their way, still under Paul’s shirt, to a nipple. All the while, he kissed Paul without stopping, sucked on his lips, his tongue, traced the outline of his teeth. Swallowed his gasps. Held up his shuddering body while he came unglued and El devoured him like a man who hadn’t kissed anyone like this in years.

  Which was exactly what El was.

  It wasn’t until someone bumped into them that El realized they’d stopped dancing entirely, that he’d started undoing Paul’s pants and was ready to sink to the floor so he could take Paul in his mouth. Not that something like this was completely out of line at Lights Out.

  But all of this absolutely was for Paul—especially drunk off his ass.

  Paul blinked out of his haze, and guilt swamped El as he took in his swollen lips and bloodshot eyes. “Why—why did you stop?”

  Not because he wanted to, that’s for damn sure. “I should get you home.”

  The way Paul’s face closed up, all that easiness and happiness and something that sure looked like lust evaporating, made El’s heart clench. “I don’t want to go home.”

  Then how about you come to my place? “Paul, you’ve had a lot to drink.”

  “So what? Everyone here has.”

  He had a point. El wanted to give into it, but he didn’t let himself. “I need to get you home.” I don’t want you to regret this in the morning.

  I don’t want you to never want to see me again in the morning.

  It was the right thing to do. El knew it was. But no amount of knowing that could have prepared him for the look of rejection, of disappointment, of humiliation on Paul’s face as he turned away from El and disappeared into the crowd.

  Walking away from El on the dance floor was a mistake, not because I wanted to stand there and be told I was a baby and had to go home, but because he was right; I was drunk, incredibly so, and within thirty seconds I was lost, disoriented, and a little scared.

  However, when he grabbed my arm and hauled me off the dance floor, I got mad again.

  I didn’t know why I was mad, but I was. Furious, actually, and embarrassed, but mostly just mad. Confused too, I guess, but that mostly made me angry too. Something had happened. I wasn’t sure what, but something big had happened, and then I’d lost it, and now I felt like half a cantaloupe someone had hollowed out.

  And El wanted to take me home and leave me there because I was drunk.

  Maybe it was because of the kiss on the dance floor, I realized, as he poured me into his car and headed toward my house. I kept my eyes on the blurry streetlights so I wouldn’t have to see the truth of that in his face, if it was the case. Which it probably was. I’d kissed too hard. I’d asked for it and he was disgusted.

  Except he hadn’t seemed disgusted. Except for at the end when he’d declared I had to go home.

  Except I’m not gay! The thought flared up like a dud firecracker and died an ignoble death.

  How could I ask a gay man to make out with me on the dance floor of a gay bar and not be gay?

  I was so confused. And hollow. And empty.

  And sad.

  I was all ready for El to drop me off at my curb, but he put his car in park, killed the engine, and came around to my door before I could figure out how to open it. He put an arm around me, too, helping me up the walk.

  It made me sadder still.

  “What the hell is that?” he asked, nodding at Detroit Daisy.

  “Art.” I scowled at it. “It’s too heavy, or I�
�d have brought it to your shop.”

  “Thank God.” He squeezed my elbow. “Come on, honey. Let’s get you inside.”

  He came into the house with me, still hovering like he was my mother, which made me angry again. “I have to go to the bathroom,” I said, pulling free and heading for it without waiting to hear what he said. I assumed he would be gone when I came out. I did have to go to the bathroom, but when I was done I splashed water on my face, and then, figuring I was going to bed now, I brushed my teeth too. I sat down on the lid of the toilet for several minutes when I was done, wallowing in my confusion and misery and giving El adequate time to get out.

  When I came out of the bathroom, El’s car was still at the curb, but El wasn’t in the kitchen or the living room. I found him in my bedroom, standing beside my bed, holding up Stacey’s ring with an odd expression on his face.

  “Why haven’t you ever brought this in? I could give you a lot more for it than for all those kitchen gadgets.”

  I shrugged, staring at the ring in his long dark fingers. It had never occurred to me to try to sell it. Somehow, I’d assumed it would always be here waiting for her.

  He let the ring fall into his palm and hefted it, as if testing its weight. He looked up at me. His eyes were guarded. “You still love her?”

  “I don’t know. I thought I did, but . . .” I was trying to kick my shoes off, which was significantly more difficult than normal. I let my words die away as I concentrated on first one, then the other.

  “But what?” he prompted.

  “Maybe it’s been a long time since I loved her.” I had to hold onto the footboard while I pulled off my socks. “I loved the life we were supposed to live.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t tell him of the plans Stacey and I had made, me with a veterinary practice, her selling her art. Buying a house. Having kids. Seeing my mother’s joy when she became a grandmother. Tennis with friends in the morning and cocktails in the afternoon. Mr. and Mrs. Hannon. A cookie-cutter life. That’s what Stacey had always wanted.