Love and Other Hot Beverages

by Laurie Loft

  He could just tell him, he could say the words I need you, and that would be simple too.

  Todd made him drink the rest of the water and then went on to massage his neck and back. Sebby’s headache evaporated. He felt loose as a jellyfish, and still Todd kept kneading his flesh, and Sebby ached for a more intimate touch. But Todd was standing on pride now, and if Sebby was going to seduce him, he was going to have to be subtle about it.

  “Can we fuck now?” he said, because, subtlety, ack. Overrated.

  Todd froze. “End of massage.”

  He moved away, and it was all Sebby could do just to rotate his head on its limp neck in order to give Todd the eye. Todd lay back, lacing his hands behind his head and training his eyes on the ceiling.

  Sebby wiggled closer. “I know what you’re thinking. That if we fuck now, it’ll just prove me right, what I thought before about you wanting to, but that’s not true. ’Cause now I want to.”

  “Of course, that was my intent all along,” Todd said, staring at the ceiling. “Erotic massage to weaken your resistance followed by fucking.” He didn’t move as Sebby’s hand snaked over his abdomen, until his fingers began working at a button, and then Todd took hold of those fingers, wrapping his own around them.

  Sebby pouted. “I don’t care, I want you.” Todd lay atop the covers, while Sebby was under them, but he managed to throw a blanketed leg over Todd’s legs, ignoring Todd’s rolled eyes and noise of exasperation. He pressed himself against Todd’s hip. Todd turned his head away, but that exposed his neck for Sebby’s convenience, and Sebby put his mouth there, finding Todd’s sweet spot.

  “Stop,” Todd said, and Sebby hesitated. He put his lips to Todd’s ear.

  “I’ll do anything you want,” he murmured, and he held his breath, letting the promise hang in the air.

  Todd repeated, “Anything I want.”

  Sebby pressed his thigh to Todd’s thighs, wriggled his fingers within Todd’s tight grasp, licked his earlobe.

  “Anything,” he breathed. And, oh, it felt reckless to lay himself open in this way.

  “Very well.” Todd cleared his throat and pulled Sebby’s hand to his chest, and Sebby’s heart leaped and galloped off. “I’d like you to tell me about your friend, about what happened to him.”

  Sebby’s brain, steeped in desire, did not understand. “What?”

  “Your friend, Sebby. The one who was hurt by homophobes.”

  Sebby was silent and motionless for long moments while Todd stroked his fingers. “Todd, sometimes you’re such a prick.”

  “You said ‘anything,’” Todd said mildly.

  “Pretend you didn’t know I meant sex. ¡No chingues!”

  “I’m sorry. You said ‘anything,’ and I admit I took advantage of the situation.”

  Irritation made him want to order Todd out of his bed. He rolled over, facing away.

  “You won’t share that with me? I feel that you hold things back, that you’re not honest with me.”

  Sebby bit his lip. He had no commitment to Todd. Todd had no commitment to him. How far did you let someone in who might leave you any day? The further in you let them get, the more you got ripped open when they left.

  “It might help to talk it over,” Todd said. “Shared burdens are halved, n’est-ce pas?”

  “It won’t help. And I’ll be sad the rest of the day, and you’ll have to put up with sad me. Also, you can forget about getting laid, puto.”

  “Forgotten,” Todd agreed.

  Sebby squirmed out of bed, stopping to toss Todd his eyeglasses. He waited until Todd had adjusted them on his face, and then pivoted in place, giving Todd the three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view. “I can’t talk on an empty stomach. Cook me breakfast while I shower.” Leaning backward, he touched his abdomen and let his fingers trail an indecent line from the apex of his rib cage to his navel and on down. “I’m hungry.”

  He had the satisfaction of seeing Todd go wide-eyed and slack-jawed, and Sebby ambled from the room.

  The smells of food and coffee reached Sebby all the way upstairs, making his mouth hurt. He hurried. He had organized his thoughts into sane and orderly words, and he was in no mood to procrastinate.

  Todd’s expression was stressed as he greeted Sebby. “Er, ah, it’s edible. At any rate, I believe it to be edible, though its appearance is hardly appetizing.” Sebby seated himself and was presented with a plate of black-speckled yellow lumps sprinkled with red and green chunks. Sebby blinked at it.

  “Coffee,” Todd continued, placing a steaming mug at the corner of the placemat. “I remembered to use the spring water.”

  Sebby touched his fork to the mess. “What is it?”

  “In its former life, it was an omelet. It died and was reincarnated as this.” Todd waved his arm.

  Sebby inhaled, and his stomach growled. “Smells good.” Todd beamed, the corners of his eyes crinkling, and Sebby forgave him for being a prick. Lifting a forkful, he examined it and found the red and green chunks to be chopped bell peppers. He smiled, his heart lightening. Todd was so cute, after all, trying to make him an omelet. “Aren’t you eating?”

  “Having arisen with the sun, and my appetite with it, I ate many hours ago.”

  “But ’s lunchtime.”

  Todd settled in the chair opposite Sebby. “I’m too much in suspense.”

  The eggs turned to ashes in Sebby’s mouth. He swallowed hard and looked down at his plate, surprised to see that the mess was half gone. “Now it’s had this huge buildup. It’s gonna be—what do you call it when the ending is a letdown?”

  “Anticlimactic? I hope it is.”

  Sebby tapped his toe, realized he was tapping it, and stopped with an effort. Get it over with. “He got beat up, like I said. Kind of bad. I wasn’t there when it happened. So. But. And then he . . .” Unexpectedly, his throat closed up, cutting off his nice, orderly explanation. He grabbed his coffee, feigning a dramatic pause and hoping Todd didn’t notice how difficult he found it to swallow.

  “He was more than a friend, wasn’t he?”

  “No.” Sebby met Todd’s eyes. “Just friends.”

  Todd’s forehead creased. He adjusted his glasses and leaned forward, peering at Sebby, who held his gaze. In the most astonished tone imaginable, Todd said, “You’re lying to me, aren’t you?”

  Sebby squirmed. Dropping his eyes, he scraped his remaining eggs into nice, neat sections on his plate. “Fine.” Things were getting too serious when someone could tell he was lying. “It makes me so sad,” he whispered. “We were lovers. And the first I heard was his sister calling me from the hospital. She knew about us; his parents didn’t. Anyway. So I went over there, and it was bad. He looked bad. Um.” Sebby paused. He was getting into more detail than he had intended. “So, we were friends is what they, his parents, thought, yes? You know. Finally, we got a minute alone. I came close to him, well, he—he told me then that he couldn’t see me anymore. I—” Sebby again paused to stop himself from revealing distressing details. “He said that he couldn’t be gay anymore.”

  “What!”

  Sebby nodded. “I— He— I thought it was just stress, well, understandable, identity crisis or whatever, and he was hurt. I told him to not worry, we would talk about it later. But, what ended up was, he went to Jesus camp. He got married. To a woman. Now he has a kid. He says he’s happy, and I don’t know, maybe he is.”

  There was a longish pause. Now it was grinding at him, the old frustration, the helplessness, the utter wrongness and inability to convince others of the wrongness. “So you see what could happen if they think they can beat it out of us?”

  “Sebby! Jesus.” Todd’s eyes were wide behind his glasses, his hands clenched around his mug as if to squeeze it to smithereens.

  “Come here?” Sebby asked, and Todd set his coffee aside. Sebby shoved his chair back, and Todd regarded him confusedly for a moment before sliding into his lap and allowing Sebby to wrap his arms around him. “I had to let him go,”
Sebby murmured, his face buried in Todd’s chest. “He wanted to go, and I let him.”

  Todd pressed his cheek to Sebby’s hair. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It happens. It’s . . . It happens. Anyway—” he sighed “—that’s what happened, and are you satisfied now?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Do you think he’s happy?”

  “How can I know? Do I think homos can be happy living the straight life? No. If he was bi, then that would be different, though the circumstances would still be worrisome.”

  Todd shifted, and Sebby felt that he was uncomfortable sitting in Sebby’s lap instead of the other way around, but Sebby wasn’t ready to let him go yet and locked his arms around Todd’s waist. “He wasn’t bi. He’s not bi. ”

  “It’s been done, whatever the reasons, fear not the least of them. But, in all likelihood, he’s deceiving himself and his family, and it will result in more hurt.” He cleared his throat. “That is something you need never fear that I would do—recant my sexuality.”

  After a long pause made up of shallow breathing, Sebby said, “Maybe.”

  “Oh, Sebby, never! They could beat me within an inch of my life, or an inch outside of it, and I would cry out, ‘Still it moves!’” When Sebby said nothing, Todd continued, “That’s what Galileo allegedly said after being forced to recant: ‘Still it moves.’” Sebby remained silent, and Todd put his finger under Sebby’s chin to tilt his face to him. “I assure you I’m secure in who I am.”

  Sebby sighed. “No, Todd, you aren’t.”

  “W— But— Ah . . . Sebastián, how can you say this?” Todd put his hands on Sebby’s shoulders; he shook him a little. “What do you mean?”

  Sebby reached to touch Todd’s cheek. “I can’t touch you at work, can’t kiss you good morning. We can’t arrive or leave together. You pretend to have girlfriends. You talk to me, but it’s wearing a mask. It’s all a lie, and I’m yanked right into the lie with you.”

  “But that’s only at work! I’m out everywhere else, everywhere that matters: at home, with your friends, and everywhere we go. Work doesn’t matter.”

  This was very Todd: acting like, since Gimondi Brothers was unimportant to him, it was unimportant altogether. Sebby brushed his fingers over Todd’s lips and across his cheek, trying to soothe. “It matters to me.”

  Todd fidgeted, but Sebby pulled Todd as tight against himself as he could, wanting to feel Todd’s bones crush against his bones, and he didn’t let up, even when Todd made an oof noise.

  “I didn’t realize it bothered you,” Todd said.

  “It’s my fault, because I said it was okay, and I went along with it. I know. But I’m telling you now: it makes me unhappy.”

  “I’ll come out tomorrow,” Todd said, the words running and bumping into one another. “I mean Monday. I’ll make an announcement. I’ll take out a full-page newspaper ad. Hire a fucking billboard.”

  Sebby smiled against Todd’s chest. “It doesn’t have to be so dramatic. It doesn’t have to be anything. Just stop lying.” He drew back to smile at Todd, and Todd’s face was pale and strained, Todd stared off into space, and his mouth worked. “It’s not as big a thing as you think. Gus already guessed, and I don’t think most of the boys will be that surprised.” He spoke gently, knowing that Todd considered himself good at his het act, but, really, you would have to be blind, deaf, and stupid to be around Todd all day and not suspect he was gay.

  “I should tender my resignation,” Todd said, as if speaking to himself. “It’d be easier, and what am I doing there anyway?”

  Sebby rubbed Todd’s back. “If you’re more comfortable with that. But can I talk about you at work, then? Can I have your picture on my desk and on my screen saver?”

  Todd did not answer.

  Todd didn’t tender his resignation, and he didn’t hire a billboard, and this didn’t surprise Sebby, but Todd growing distant, this surprised him. Todd acting more formal toward Sebby at work, Todd spending more time with his family, all this surprised him. Days passed, and Sebby wondered if Todd was seeing someone else. At least that was something Sebby could understand and deal with. Monogamy, even to someone who said he was a monogamist, must get old.

  After days of being ignored and put off, Sebby, at quitting time, trailed Todd to his pickup.

  “Come for dinner?” he asked, and oh, he was ashamed of how his voice quavered.

  “Not tonight.” Todd adjusted his rearview mirror. “I made plans with Ryan.”

  “Oh.” Sebby froze. There was nothing to say to that, though he wanted to protest, Who spends Friday night with their nephew? “Well. I can make plans too.”

  He risked a glance at Todd, Todd was nodding and looking away. Preoccupied, that was how he seemed, and what was he preoccupied with? Vivian, the horrid bitch—maybe he’d called again. But Todd didn’t really have the Vivian look on his face.

  Sebby walked off, feeling for the first time in their acquaintance that Todd was not watching him walk away.

  If only people could make as much sense as spreadsheets.

  Four hours later, Todd’s plans for the evening were kaput, Ryan having received an invitation to spend the night at a friend’s—friend trumping uncle in any eleven-year-old’s world. Todd thought of calling Sebby, but he didn’t feel that he could see him without first doing as Sebby wished, and this simple task had proved more formidable than Todd had imagined. The entire week had passed without his accomplishing it.

  No matter how often he rehearsed, each time he opened his mouth to speak, the words tripped him up, leaving him sweating and stammering. Two simple words! Well, one contraction and one simple word—I’m gay—and, in trying to say them, it was as if he were Mr. Banks endeavoring to pronounce supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Sebby had accused him of pretending about girlfriends, and this had wounded Todd, for he’d never mentioned girls. He had allowed his coworkers to make their assumptions. Just stop lying, Sebby had said, but Todd had never outright lied.

  His evenings were occupied with the job search and retooling his résumé. He swallowed his pride and put in a call to Rita, his boss when he’d been an intern in Minneapolis. Months ago, when Todd had quit his New York job and fled to Denver, Rita had phoned him and reamed him out for giving up the job she had placed him in.

  “Goddamned irresponsible, Addison,” she had said. “I gave them a glowing review, got you your job, and this is how you repay me! And it’s not just me you’ve screwed, but my future interns. How can I ever place an intern in New York again?” Then she had tried to convince him to return to Minnesota and, upon his refusal, had offered him freelance work, which he had promised to consider, but on which he had never followed up, till now.

  Rita was glad to hear from him and promised to send him an assignment, but was leery about being his reference. “Goddamn it, kid; I don’t trust you. You’re unreliable. Some new boy’ll ditch you, and you’ll quit and run off again. Denver’ll be shut to me too. Or,” she went on, knowingly, “that boy’ll want you back, and you’ll run off to New York. Ha. They’ll blackball you there.”

  “Rita, I quit a job. It’s been done before. They don’t hold it against me.”

  “No, they hold it against me. Fine, you’re looking for a new job? Tell ’em to call me. I’ll tell ’em you’re unpredictable, but crazy talented.”

  “Thank you, Rita. I’m in your debt.”

  Todd had telephoned all of the contacts on the list Wayne had emailed him, and polite interest had been expressed. He arranged for meetings with two of them. The email from Rita arrived, and he began work on her assignment. The week passed, he hadn’t come out, and he didn’t know what to say to Sebby, any more than he knew what to say to his coworkers.

  And now it was Friday night, and he was alone.

  Todd loitered in the front yard. Once a coward, always a coward. Why can’t you be a man? He pulled out his phone, hesitated, and dialed Holly.

  He was dismayed to learn that Holly had
lost her gig at the dinner theater due to a heavy sunburn. After commiserating with her over this turn of fate, Todd broached the subject that was at the top of his brain.

  “Sebby wants me to come out.”

  “I thought you were out. I mean, except for your mom.”

  Todd began pacing the yard. “Not at work. I told him I’d do it. And I tried, and I . . . seem unable to do it. And now we are not speaking to one another, Sebby and I.”

  “So he gave you an ultimatum?”

  “Er, not exactly.”

  “Um. What exactly did he say?”

  “He said . . . Well, first I said that I was out everywhere except work, and work didn’t matter, and he said that it mattered to him and that he was unhappy.”

  “But he won’t talk to you until you do it?”

  “He is not denying me the pleasure of his company, if that is what you are asking . . .”

  “Ohhh. You mean you won’t talk to him until you do it.”

  “Well . . .”

  “You’re, like, punishing him for the fact that he’s making you do something you don’t want.”

  “But . . . but . . .” Todd stammered in his eagerness to communicate his frustration. “How can I face him until I fulfill my promise? I vowed to do it on Monday, and the entire work week has passed!”

  “Well, you already broke your promise, and not talking to him doesn’t fix it.”

  Todd was silent. It hurt to think that there was no retrieving the broken promise.

  “So I think you should talk to him, say you’re sorry. Don’t you think he probably understands that it’s hard? Are you really scared, like scared? Or just nervous?”

  “Stage fright has never been one of my weaknesses.”