Man Enough

by Beth Burnett

“Coffee doesn’t count?”

  “No, it doesn’t. This will help with the hangover.”

  I sip slowly on the smoothie as we drive to the office. She’s right. I can feel it seeping into the empty spots in my body, strengthening me for the day. I look at Andy’s face as she drives. She’s smiling, singing along with an old Pansy Division song. Her skin is smooth, her eyes are bright. She looks more like thirty than forty. I should have been a lesbian. I could have moved in with Andy years ago and I would be thin and fit right now. We’d work out all of the time, and she would make me healthy smoothies for breakfast. I chuckle a little at the idea.

  Andy turns her head. “What’s funny?”

  “I was just thinking that if I had been a lesbian, you and I would have gotten married years ago and I would probably be fit and thin by now.”

  She laughs. “No, you would look just the way you look right now.”

  “What? No way. You’d force me to work out every day.”

  She shakes her head. “Uh uh. We’d exercise together for health, but I wouldn’t want you to look any other way than you do right now.”

  “Andy, seriously.”

  “Davey, I am serious. Why can’t you accept that you’re beautiful?”

  “Because I’m fat.”

  “You’re not fat. You just think you are because that’s all Joe ever told you. For that alone, I should have cut off his dick. It’s been two years — it’s time to move on.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know. Anyway, I probably wouldn’t lose weight with you anyway, because you eat take out so much.”

  Andy smiles. “If you were my wife, you’d be cooking for me every day, so I wouldn’t have to order take out.”

  She pulls up in front of my office. “Hey, I was thinking of getting a group and going out to Frankie and Betty’s tomorrow night. Any interest?” She pauses. “You can bring Danny.”

  “How generous.” I raise an eyebrow at her. “Dinner thing or drink thing?”

  “Drink thing. Say around eight?”

  “Sounds good. Shall I invite Steve and Erik?”

  “Please. They would love it. Want me to call your mom and ask her?”

  “Yeah, how about Lynne and the UPS driver?”

  “What the hell? I’ll call Bob and reserve a table on the patio. We can sit on the sidewalk and scare all the straight people.”

  I laugh and jump out of the car. I poke my head back in and grin at Andy. “You know, if we were married and I was having to cook you dinner every night, one thing would definitely change.”

  She looks up, curious. “Yes?”

  “You’d have to start opening car doors for me!” I close the door and walk to the building. I’m laughing as I walk into the office and still smiling when I reach the office. Steve and Erik walk in a few minutes behind me.

  “Girl, I saw Andy leaving as I pulled up. Man, she is always hot.”

  “Steve, give it up. She’s a lesbian. And you have a wonderful hubby!”

  Erik shakes his head. “Andy’s on his freebie list. If she changed her mind, he would be allowed to do her.”

  “Only I can guarantee she wouldn’t be the one to get fucked,” I laugh.

  Steve looks thoughtful for a second. “I’d be okay with that.”

  Erik starts up his computer. “Davey, I don’t know about this. You’ve been celibate for like five years…”

  “Two,” I interject.

  “Two. And now you’re either getting dropped off at work by a hot guy or by a hot woman. Seems like you have a lot going on these days.”

  “Stop it. You know Andy is my best friend. She just dropped me off so Danny could pick me up this evening.”

  Steve looks up. “Oh yes? And where are you two kids going on your date tonight?”

  “My house. Leah and Lynne have that sex class tonight and my mother has already promised to spend the night away. So, I will be spending the evening alone with my man.”

  “Oh, ho ho!” Erik giggles like a school girl.

  “Young love,” Steve sighs. “It’s so adorable.”

  I somehow make it through the work day, with Steve and Erik making little comments all day. The day was pretty uneventful. We are continuing to sell tickets to the benefit, and raising money in other ways from people who maybe can’t spend that much money on tickets. I love to tell people that every little bit counts. One of the tag lines in our new ad is “If your child is happy and healthy, please consider donating to a child who isn’t.” Our donations have been slowly ramping up as people grow to understand more about the LGBT community.

  I look at the clock. Danny should be here in a minute. I stand up, gathering my things with the intention of meeting Danny outside.

  “Oh, crap. Guys, I forgot to tell you. Andy wants to do a big group thing at Frankie and Betty’s tomorrow night … about eight. You in?”

  “Totally.” Steve grins.

  “Excuse me?”

  I look up. Another of our temp volunteers is in the doorway, with Danny behind her. “Hey!” I walk over and take Danny’s hand, thanking the temp, whose name I can’t remember.

  Steve and Erik both come out from behind their desks and look Danny over from head to toe.

  He nods at both of them and smiles. “So which one is Steve and which is Erik?” he asks.

  Steve leans forward to shake Danny’s hand. “I’m Steve. This is my hubby, Erik.”

  Erik also shakes hands with Danny.

  “It’s so nice to meet you, Danny,” Erik says. “We’ve heard so much about you.”

  I roll my eyes. “I’m ready to go.”

  Danny takes my hand.

  “Wait, wait,” Steve says. “We haven’t had a chance to chat. Danny, do you like Liza Minelli?”

  Danny smiles. “Well, she was good in Arthur.”

  “Negative,” Erik says. “We’re talking about stage and song.”

  “Sorry guys. I know who she is, but I don’t think I could name anything she sings.”

  Steve nods. “Danny, have you ever watched ‘Glee’?”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” I scowl. “Danny, come on.”

  Danny is laughing. “Are you trying to figure out if I’m gay?”

  Erik shakes his head. “Steve thinks every hot guy is gay.”

  Danny smooths back his hair and adopts a male model pose. “All I can say is, at least he has good taste in hot guys.”

  “Oh please,” I snort. We all laugh.

  Danny smiles at the guys as we walk out the door. He turns back once before we leave. “I’m not gay,” he says. “But I promise if I ever decide to consider it, I’ll let you know.”

  He puts his arm around me and we walk out. Behind me, I hear Steve say, “That’s it. He’s going on my freebie list!”

  I smile up at Danny as we walk to his car. “You charm everyone.”

  He takes my hand and kisses the back of it. “I like people. I like most people.”

  “It shows. Everyone in my life is falling in love with you.”

  He opens the passenger side door and looks at me. “Everyone?”

  I lean forward and kiss him on the cheek, then get into the car. Danny sighs, closes the door and walks around to the driver’s side. I’m in love with him. I definitely love him. I just don’t know if I’m ready to tell him yet. It feels too quick, it feels like we’re challenging fate by getting so intense, so fast. My feelings for him terrify me. And his feelings for me kind of terrify me, too.

  I hold his hand as we drive home. He doesn’t try to interrupt my thoughts, he’s singing softly along with the eighties music on the radio.

  I watch his face as he drives. He looks completely relaxed behind the wheel. His hands are beautiful, with long, strong fingers. His nails and clean and cut short. As I look at him, I realize that there is nothing about his appearance that isn’t appealing to me. He catches me studying him out of the corner of his eye and stops singing.

  “Too far off-key?” he asks.

  “Not at all.
How can you be off-key during Safety Dance?”

  He glances over at me, then back at the road. “What is it?”

  “I was just looking at your face.”

  “Do I have something hanging from my nose?”

  I let out a huge laugh. “No, not at all! No. I was just studying your face and thinking that there is nothing about it that isn’t incredibly attractive.”

  He ducks his head and flushes a bit. “Really?” He looks at me out of the corner of his eye again.

  “Yeah. I know I have said this before, but your features are perfect.”

  “That’s completely subjective.”

  “Well, then it’s a good thing that my opinion falls so squarely in your favor.”

  He picks up my hand and kisses the inside of my wrist. I feel it all the way down to my toes. “Danny.”

  “Should we stop somewhere and pick up dinner? I’m sure after working all day, you don’t feel like cooking.”

  “I have noodles at home. All we have to do is boil some water and throw them in. While it is boiling, I will chop a bunch of veggies and sauté them. Then, I will dump them into the homemade red sauce that is already made.”

  He nods. “Impressive plan. And what will I do?”

  “You will rummage in my fridge and make a salad out of absolutely anything you want.”

  “I think I can handle that.”

  “Danny.” I stroke the inside of his arm.

  He looks over at me. “Love?”

  “Did you bring an overnight bag?”

  “I did.”

  I look out the window and smile to myself. Danny’s fingers keep stroking my hand the rest of the way home.

  Lynne and Leah are still home when we get there, but getting ready to leave. Leah gives me a quick hug. “Have fun, be safe,” she whispers in my ear. She kisses Danny on the cheek and they leave.

  Danny drops his overnight bag on a chair and turns to me. “Come here.”

  I fold myself into his arms and lean my head back for a kiss. He obliges by lightly nibbling on my lower lip, then moving his mouth to kiss my cheek, my eyes, my forehead. He lightly sucks one of my earlobes into his mouth, then releases it and bites my neck. My whole body is throbbing as I pull away from him.

  “This time you have to control yourself. I still need to start dinner and take a shower. Why don’t you put your bag in my bedroom.” I send up a quick prayer that Leah has cleaned the bedroom as promised. I put on the water to boil, get out the pasta, pull all of the vegetables out of the fridge. Danny comes in and puts something in the fridge.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s your breakfast for tomorrow.”

  “Impressive! I should keep you around.”

  He grins and asks for a knife. He chops the veggies while I take a quick shower. Leah has cleaned the bedroom, changed the sheets, hung up all of our clothes. I make a mental note to buy her flowers tomorrow. Or pay for her piercings. I throw on a simple t-shirt without a bra and a pair of hip hugging jeans. I walk into the kitchen barefoot.

  “Danny?”

  He turns around and looks me up and down. A small smile plays over his lips.

  “Yes, love?”

  “How was your day today?”

  “It was good. I finished an article on homeopathic veterinarians.”

  “Interesting. Maybe we should take Harry to one.” I eye Harry as he jumps into a kitchen chair.

  Danny reaches over and pets Harry’s head. “He’s a sweetheart.”

  “He’s a menace. Leah left the bedroom door open and he got into a laundry basket and shredded three pairs of underwear. Nice underwear!”

  “Poor baby.” He nuzzles his face against my neck. “I’ll buy you new underwear.”

  I laugh and smack his hand. “More cutting, less nuzzling.” He runs one finger across the neck of my t-shirt. “I don’t think it’s fair to come out here without a bra and expect me not to touch your breasts.”

  “I do expect you to touch them. You’re just not allowed to touch them right now.”

  “You’re a hard woman.”

  “I’m a slave driver in the kitchen, buddy.” I wave a wooden spoon at him.

  Danny sautéed the veggies while I was showering, so I dump them into the red sauce. The pasta is in the boiling water.

  “Davey, are we eating in here?”

  “Yes, do you want to set the table?”

  “Show me where everything is.”

  He sets the table, as I finish cooking our dinner. He places two bowls of salad at each place.

  “Dressing?”

  “There’s an oil and vinegar mix in a plastic container. Bottom shelf.”

  I dish up our spaghetti and we sit to eat.

  “I guess we need to add cooking to your extensive list of accomplishments.”

  “Yes, I can barely carry my resume, it’s so extensive.”

  “Why do you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Deflect compliments.”

  “I don’t know. I guess it sometimes makes me feel uncomfortable.”

  “I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable, but I want to be able to compliment you when I feel it.”

  “I don’t want you to stop,” I say softly.

  He smiles. “Good.”

  “You seem to take compliments pretty well.”

  “You mean when you told me I had the face of an angel?” He grins. “Or when you said I was really good at oral sex?”

  I blush and smack his arm. “Either. Or both.”

  He looks serious for a minute. “I trust you. So, if you tell me something, I know that it’s true, at least in your opinion. Whether or not I’m gorgeous doesn’t matter to me one bit. Whether or not you think I am matters quite a lot.”

  I take his hand and kiss the inside of his wrist.

  “Ah,” he breathes. “You’re stealing my moves.”

  After dinner, we clean up quickly, then move to the living room. I sit down on the couch and Danny flops down next to me, lying his head on my lap. I run my fingers through his hair, over his eyebrows, down his nose, across his lips. He closes his eyes and smiles.

  “Davey, I haven’t seen you since Thursday morning. Tell me everything that’s happened since then.”

  I move my hands back to his head, and run my fingers through his hair. “Girls’ night was a bust. Lynne brought the UPS girl.”

  “I thought that was taboo.”

  “It was. I don’t know what she was thinking.”

  “Knowing you, you were probably warm and welcoming to her.”

  “I was nice. Andy was not.”

  “Hmm. I find that hard to believe.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Anything else? How was work today?”

  “Today was fine. I love Steve and Erik.”

  “They seem really nice.”

  “I like them a lot. We work well together.”

  “Do they really think I’m gay?”

  “No, they’re just trying to get a rise out of me.”

  “Did you think that I’m gay?”

  “Never in life.”

  He smiles. “I’m really proud of you, not many people would do what you do to help all of those kids.”

  “Too bad we can’t help all of them. I talked to Jonah Astor on the phone the week he died. We were trying to help him, but we didn’t do enough.”

  “I saw that in the paper. He was the transgendered boy who killed himself?”

  “Technically, he was transsexual. He knew he was male, but he was born in a female body. He hadn’t started transitioning yet, but only because he was under eighteen. His mother thought it would be better to wait until he was completely through puberty before he started having surgeries or taking hormones. He had been passing as a boy for several years, but of course, someone found out and then everyone knew. His mother switched his schools a couple of times, but it was the same story.”

  “I noticed you refer to him as ‘he’, even though he ha
dn’t started transitioning.”

  “Well, he was a boy. He was just born in the wrong body. He couldn’t help that. He was only lucky in that he had a mother who completely accepted him and forced his siblings to accept him, as well.”

  “You have an amazing soul,” Danny says, reaching up and stroking my face.

  I look down at him, blinking back tears. “His mother is the one with the amazing soul. She lost her son. I can’t even begin to imagine the pain of losing a child. I can’t imagine the pain of looking into that beautiful boy’s eyes every day and seeing the torment he was going through.” I can feel a tear sliding down my face. Danny reaches up and wipes it off.

  “Davey. There’s something I want to talk about.”

  “Of course, Danny. What…”

  I’m interrupted by a banging on the door. What the hell is going on now? “Give me a minute.”

  The banging continues as Danny and I stand up. Danny looks at me. “Let me answer, that sounds angry.”

  He opens the door and Sarah comes storming in. She looks at Danny, then at me. “Is Lynne here?”

  “No, Sarah, she’s not. And as you can see, I have a date, so…”

  Sarah flops down into a chair, obviously drunk. “Do you know when she’s coming back?”

  “No, I asked her to stay out all night so I could have some private…”

  “Is she with that little bitch?” Her voice is rising.

  “No, she’s with my mother, who is also kicked out of the house for the night. So, as you can see, this really…”

  “She never should have left.” Sarah’s eyes start watering. “I shouldn’t have yelled at her.” Her voice cracks and she starts full on crying. Danny grabs a box of tissues and hands it to her. She blows her nose and leaves the crumpled tissue on the table.

  “Sarah, look. I know things are difficult right now, but…”

  “I can’t believe she told you that we weren’t having sex!”

  “Well, we’ve been friends for twenty…”

  “That was nobody’s business but ours.”

  “I know. She knows. She was just…”

  “And it isn’t like we never had sex. It just wasn’t all of the time.”

  “That’s fine, Sarah, but…”

  “She doesn’t know how hard it is for me, working all of the time, trying to make ends meet, paying the mortgage, paying the bills.”