by Laurie Loft
No, a sectary: it means a zealot, a devotee, a fanatic.
LOL. U like words. Y r u in construction?
Construction guys can’t like words?
U know your way around a site, but u don’t belong there. Ur a word sectary. So y r u there?
Todd was not ready to have this conversation. It’s temporary. I am in limbo, as it were.
Bc of what happened. Your love affair.
Todd chose his words carefully. Because I don’t know what I ought to do. He immediately followed with another text: *what I want to do.
Sebby replied, I know what I want to do and who I want to do it to.
“To whom I want to do it,” Todd said, and winced. He and Vivian had been in the habit of correcting one another’s grammar. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. A thousand times good night! he texted. He was mixing his plays, and Viv might have called him on it, but Sebby did not.
His last action before going to bed was to stare at Vivian’s name on his cell phone, or rather his pet name, Vivid. He realized he should delete it. He decided he would. First thing the next day.
“How was the big date?” Dean asked.
Todd’s smile was genuine. “Pretty goddamn awesome.”
“Sweet! So she was hot? Did you get some?”
Uncomfortable with this line of questioning, Todd just smirked. Let Dean draw his own conclusions.
Some days later, it was particularly warm, and Todd removed his hat in order to wipe his forearm across his brow. He was tired and grubby, and a dip in a pool might have been preferable to lunch, were he given the choice.
“Hat on till you’re out of the hard hat area, Addison,” Gus ordered. Todd replaced his hat until he was across the site and in his truck.
“¡Oye, Zorro!” Sebby leaned into the open window of Todd’s truck. “Too hot for coffee?”
“Never too hot for coffee.” Todd accepted the proffered cup. “This is a . . .” He looked into the oversized cup and back up at Sebby. “Iced coffee? You’re amazing, French Press.” He gulped the cold beverage, and it was close to the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
“These are Thai spring rolls. You eat them cold.”
Todd felt a nudge and opened his eyes to see a plastic container being shoved at him.
“There’s peanut sauce for dipping. So . . . you know. Let me know if you like them.” Sebby rapped his knuckles on the door and turned to go.
“Sebastián? Won’t you join me?”
Sebby turned back, glanced around. “Are you sure?” Todd nodded. Sebby smiled and then bopped around to the other side of the truck and climbed in, slamming the door and bouncing a little. “This is the first time I’ve been in your truck.”
“Hopefully not the last.” Todd ripped the cover from the container. “Did you make these?”
“Of course. They’re refreshing on a hot day.” Sebby took the container from Todd and parceled out spring rolls. “We have to share the dip.” He slid toward Todd along the old truck’s bench seat.
Todd was conscious of Sebby’s body so near and his dimple, just within kissing distance. Sebby was neat and clean and made Todd more aware of his own sweaty state. “You may not want to sit so close. It’s a hot day and . . . I’m hot.”
Sebby rolled his eyes. “I knooow what you’re trying to say. No, I’m not used to sweaty construction workers at all, no.” He edged a bit closer.
Todd’s nerves were doing the Lindy Hop. To distract himself, he dunked a spring roll and took a huge bite. It was refrigerator-cold and his eyes widened. “Mmm.”
“No double-dipping,” Sebby said.
Todd felt a hand on his thigh, just resting there, and suddenly he could think of nothing except the fact that there was a hand on his thigh. He stuffed the rest of the spring roll into his mouth.
“Tell me about him.” Sebby’s hand moved up Todd’s thigh.
Todd inhaled a bit of spring roll and was seized by a coughing fit. He tried to suppress it, which made it worse, so he gave into it, coughing, wheezing, eyes watering. Sebby eyed him. A swig of coffee and Todd caught his breath. In a strangled voice, he said, “I don’t want to talk about him, I’m trying to forget about him.”
“And doing such an epic job of it. You never talk about him, and it isn’t natural. Sometimes you have to talk to forget. Like emptying the garbage.” His hand inched up Todd’s thigh.
“I don’t . . . It’s not . . . Discussing one’s former paramours with one’s current paramour is a faux pas I don’t intend to make.” He moved his leg away a bit, but Sebby’s hand followed, moving ever-so-slightly inward.
“Is that what I am? Your paramour?”
“Yes! My—my paramour. Sebby, don’t.”
Sebby’s hand curved toward Todd’s inner thigh. “Tell me one thing about him, just one thing.”
“Ah, God,” Todd remarked under his breath. Then aloud: “He was eighteen . . . is eighteen.”
Sebby’s hand stopped. “Ahhh.”
“Ahhh, what?” Todd said, irritated.
“The young ones. They break your heart and teach you humility.” He raised a spring roll, took a bite, and chewed meditatively.
Todd shifted, unsure if he wanted Sebby’s hand to continue its progress. “I don’t think the age thing was the whole thing, but are you saying you had . . . did you have a younger love?”
“Who hasn’t? We all do it when we’re young, and we all fall for them when we’re older. I had many older lovers and broke all their hearts. I didn’t mean to, but I did.”
“We . . . we who? Homosexuals? I never did. I’ve never broken anyone’s heart.”
Sebby laughed. “Oh, Toddfox, you’re so naïve. I don’t know about straight people, maybe they do the same thing. But tell me, Todd-who-has-never-broken-a-heart: when you were young, did you never date someone older than you?”
“Of course . . . often. But they were all casual affairs. I never got close to anyone until Viv—” Todd made an annoyed sound in his throat. He hadn’t meant ever to mention Viv’s name to Sebby, ever.
Sebby patted Todd’s leg. “They were casual to you; you told yourself they were casual so you had no guilt when you left them.”
It was like looking at one of those optical illusions where a stack of three-dimensional cubes abruptly seemed to be sunken in instead of sticking out. He tried to swallow a glob of half-chewed spring roll.
Sebby regarded him with concern. “Ay, now you’re thinking you must hunt them down and apologize. I didn’t mean to make you feel guilty. Don’t you see? What goes around comes around. You did it to others, and now it was done to you. The universe, fate, no?”
Todd stared straight ahead through the windshield, seeing nothing. For once Sebby had read him wrong. The thought uppermost in Todd’s mind was not the wrong he might have done to others, but that perhaps Todd had meant no more to Vivian than the men from Todd’s youth had meant to Todd.
“Now you’re sad. I’m sorry.” Sebby petted Todd’s shoulder and peered into his face.
Unblinking, Todd shook his head. “I think you’re wrong. Viv . . . Viv loved me. We’d planned to marry . . .”
“Marry?”
“We had rings and everything.” Todd gave Sebby a twisted, wry smile. “I still have them—both of them. He gave me mine back, but I kept his.”
Sebby’s eyes were huge and pained. “I’m sorry, Todd.”
“I mean that I don’t think it was the way you paint it.” He hunched his shoulders in a painful shrug and turned away. “Maybe it was. I don’t know anything anymore.”
“I’m sure I’m wrong. ¡Dios mío! I shouldn’t talk so sassy and rude. Shh . . .” Sebby squeezed Todd’s leg. Todd leaned against the door to keep himself from leaning into Sebby. “I’m going back to the office, and there’s still this paperwork you’ve never completed. I’m going to get it out. You finish lunch and then come straight to the office. ¿Entiendes?” There followed a gentle stream
of Spanish, and Todd was lulled in spite of himself. “Okay? You’ll come into the office. Okay?” Sebby’s grip tightened.
Todd nodded. “I will, yes. I’ll be there in a few.” He tried to smile, but his face would not respond. “I’m all right. I promise I’m not going to sit and weep. I’ll finish eating and I’ll trot on over there.”
“Good.” Sebby moved away and was out the door all in one smooth motion, and the loss of physical contact was like a blow. Todd watched him walk away, and it was strange, it was so strange, to want someone so much who was not Vivian.
Todd entered the mobile office, his stomach full of spring rolls, his head full of nagging voices. The window air conditioning unit hummed, and a chill settled on his skin. A boilermaker stood hunched over Sebby’s desk, grimacing while Sebby pointed with a pen. Sebby looked up. “Those forms are on the table, Todd.” He gestured. “Leonard, do you want privacy? Should I tell Todd to come back?”
“No, it’s not a big deal.”
Todd seated himself at the table, setting aside his hard hat and goggles, and bent his head over the forms. Nearby were two pens and two sharpened pencils. Emergency Notification. Todd listed his brother first and his mother second. Physician. Todd hadn’t tried to find one since he’d moved. He left it blank. His pen tapped, and he listened with half an ear to Leonard and Sebby.
“I’m short right now. Can’t you take out less now and even it up at the end of the year?”
“No, we have to take out the court-ordered amount. I’m sorry, Lenny.”
Todd glanced over to see Sebby patting Leonard’s hand, and hid a smile behind his papers. The way Sebby mothered the men on the crew was endearing.
Eventually Leonard agreed that Sebby was doing his best. Sebby followed him to the door and shut it behind him before returning to stand behind Todd and slide his arms around him, leaning his cheek on Todd’s head.
Todd put a hand on Sebby’s forearm where it rested on his chest. “I gotta finish these papers.”
“I’ll just stand here while you do that.” He squeezed Todd. “I don’t want to go out tonight.”
“No?”
“I want us to stay in. So we can talk. You can’t talk at a movie. Or snuggle.” He nuzzled Todd’s hair, and Todd was comforted, but he couldn’t help thinking that it probably smelled like the inside of a helmet. “Come straight to my place. Do you like baths?”
Confused at the change of subject, Todd stammered. “Do I what?”
“Some manly men refuse to take baths; it must always be a shower. But you may have noticed my beautiful claw-foot tub, and you can soak in it, and I have fizzy bath balls.”
“Bath balls?”
“You drop them in the water and they go foosh and they make you tingle all over.” He ran his fingers up and down Todd’s chest. Todd fidgeted and bit his lip.
“You’re telling me I smell bad.”
Sebby nuzzled again into Todd’s hair and then his neck, and spoke with his lips just below Todd’s ear. “I’m telling you I want you to come straight to my place, not go home first. And have a nice, relaxing bath, and I’ll even join you, if that’s okay.”
“Oh, that would most definitely be okay.”
The afternoon crawled by, but the day was over at last. Just to remove his hat and feel the breeze ruffling his damp hair was bliss. Todd climbed into his truck and cranked the air, aiming all the vents at his face. Leaning back and closing his eyes, he pulled his shirt up to let air pass over his itchy skin, feeling achy and so grimy and slimy that he was considering the possibility of heading home for a pre-bath shower, when a knock on his door startled him. There stood Sebby with a knowing smile. Todd opened the door, and Sebby shoved a handful of folded papers at him.
“You forgot to take your copies. Do you forget things you’re supposed to do, Todd?”
Todd accepted the papers. “Ah. N-o . . .”
“Good. Then drive slow so I can have a few minutes to get things ready.” He rapped his knuckles on the door and walked away, and Todd watched him go, noting the roll of his hips and the bounce of his hair at the back of his neck. I’ve got it bad. The thought scared him a little.
He drove slowly as instructed. Sebastián opened the front door as Todd came limping up the walk. “Poor Todd, you’re a mess. You might as well jump straight in the bath.”
Todd ran his fingers through his matted hair and edged past Sebby. He toed off his shoes and shuffled to the bathroom and paused, confounded, in the doorway. Candles were burning on the shelves and windowsill and glowing on the sink and the back of the commode. The high-backed claw-foot tub had been filled, and candles floated, flickering, in the water.
“Jesus. You didn’t have to—”
Sebby’s voice came from just at Todd’s shoulder. “But I wanted to.”
“I can’t believe you went to so much trouble . . .”
Sebby drew his hand down the inside of Todd’s arm and took Todd’s hand in his. “It’s only a few candles.”
“A few? The Denver denizens will suffer a Sebby-sprung candle shortage.” He raised Sebby’s hand to his mouth, kissing the knuckles before removing his eyeglasses. The room blurred into a mix of colors and hazy candle nimbuses. He peeled off his sticky, clinging clothing and dropped it in a heap.
“That was an elegant striptease, Zorro. I’m breathless.”
Todd threw him an embarrassed grin before leaning over the tub to swish his hand in the water. He thought he looked good; the weeks of construction work had turned him into something of a hardbody, ridding him of the extra fat that had accumulated during the year or so of desk work and infrequent exercise. There was a sudden wish that Viv could see him now, see his flat stomach and rounded biceps. But Vivian had liked him the way he’d been; maybe he would not approve.
Stepping over the high sides of the tub, he nudged the floating candles aside and sank down into the hot water with a long sigh, then ducked under and came up dripping. The back of the tub sloped just so and fit against him, warm below the waterline, cool above. After long moments, he realized he was still alone in the tub and opened his eyes to see Sebby, wearing only a pristine, white towel around his waist, about to attack with what appeared to be an oversized chunk of shredded wheat.
Todd sat up straight. The water sloshed around him. “What is that?”
“A loofah. It’s organic and biodegradable.” He dipped the shredded wheat in the water, squeezed something greenish onto it, and brought it close to Todd, who grabbed Sebby’s wrist. The shredded wheat dripped green.
“What are you doing?” Todd demanded.
“What d’you think? I’m going to wash you.”
“Oh, no, French Press. If there’s any washing to be done, I shall do it myself.”
“There is washing to be done, and I want to do it.”
“But . . .” Todd hesitated, still holding Sebby’s wrist. “You wash my back, I’ll wash yours. That’s how it works. Get in here.” He made as if to pull Sebby into the tub with him, but Sebby crouched down, and the tub’s high sides gave Todd no leverage. “But you said you’d join me!”
“I never said I’d join you in the bathtub. Now, this is my bath and I’m the boss of it, so you’re going to let me wash you.” Sebby wrinkled his nose, looking up at Todd from his crouch. “Unless you want to jump out and put those nasty clothes back on before I’ve had a chance to wash them. Oooh. That wouldn’t feel nice at all.”
Todd hesitated. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Relax. Enjoy.”
“I cannot just sit here and allow you to be my bath boy.”
“Why not?”
“Be . . . because . . . because . . . it doesn’t feel right.”
“Why?”
Todd squirmed as though someone were restraining him rather than the other way round. “Because I just sit here and do nothing and just let you . . .? No, I can’t do that.”
“Todd, this is uncomfortable and you’re hurting my arm.”
Chag
rined, Todd released him. “I’m sorry.”
Sebastián bounced to his feet and stepped around to the back of the tub, behind Todd. He put his hands on Todd’s shoulders, pulling him till Todd reclined against the slope. “You weren’t hurting me. I just said that so you’d let go.” He ran his fingers through Todd’s wet hair. “I want to wash your hair. That’s very sensual, you know, someone washing your hair. Won’t you let me?”
Todd’s breathing grew ragged. “All right. But only if you—”
“No, no bargains,” Sebby interrupted. “Just let me.” He continued running his fingers through Todd’s hair. “Aren’t you used to someone taking care of you? Manly Zorro, all independent?” Holding Todd with one arm, he commenced to scrub Todd’s chest and abdomen in slow up-and-down strokes. The loofah was pleasantly abrasive, and an herbal fragrance arose, but Todd felt awkward and stiff.
“Sebastián.” Todd placed his hand on Sebby’s arm where it lay across his chest. “In point of fact, I am much too needy, as has been pointed out to me emphatically and often.”
Sebby raised Todd’s arms one by one and washed beneath them, ignoring Todd’s cringing. “Shh. Will you relax? This is nice.” He moved around the tub and washed down the length of Todd’s legs. “Tell me something else about him.” He lifted Todd’s foot from the water and scrubbed it with something that Todd could have sworn was a rock. Sebby glanced at Todd through his eyelashes. “What’s he look like?”
“What does it matter?” Todd watched as Sebby rubbed the rock between each of Todd’s toes before lifting the other foot. “Wouldn’t that be easier if you were in here with me?”
“Maybe, but I want to pamper you a little. You had a hard day working in the hot sun while I sat in an air-conditioned office. And it matters because . . . Tell me what he looks like and then I’ll tell you why it matters.”
“Office work is not necessarily invigorating and stress-free.” Todd was so uneasy with this treatment that he rashly promised, “Tell you what, French Press. Climb in here with me and I’ll tell you everything you wish to know.”