Tipping the Balance

by Koehler, Christopher

  “You’ve gone from just figuring out you might be attracted to guys to being in a serious relationship with a man whose level of comfort with his own sexuality doesn’t leave you a lot of room to negotiate or let you get used to this at your own pace?” Morgan summarized.

  “Something like that. I mean, I can barely say I’m gay to myself, let alone out loud,” Brad said, eyes darting around nervously, “and he wants to go out and hold hands.”

  Morgan nodded slowly. “I can see how that’d be rough.”

  “Why can’t he just let me do this on my own schedule? When I’m ready? When I’m comfortable, damn it. Why am I suddenly his latest project?” Brad demanded.

  “I’ll tell you something about Drew St. Charles,” Morgan sighed.

  Brad frowned as Morgan told him about Drew’s high school experiences. “Yeah, he’s told me all of that.”

  “Okay, what he didn’t tell you is what it means. He had to struggle to be himself, and that taught him to fight for what he wants. It also gave him the utter conviction that you can only be happy—truly happy—if you’re out, and the faster the better.”

  “Hmm. I guess. Why aren’t you as pushy? How long have you been out?” Brad asked.

  “I don’t really remember not being out,” Morgan said with a shrug. “I noticed boys when my friends noticed girls. My family noticed me noticing, and it wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t have to fight to be who I am. Drew did. That makes him impatient with people who aren’t on his timeline, and since yes, he likes projects, he’s made you one,” Morgan said.

  “Sometimes I wish he’d just back off,” Brad muttered.

  “Understandable,” Morgan said. “Do you wish you weren’t together?”

  Brad thought about it. “No,” he said, after a moment’s hesitation. “No. I really like being around him. He’s a great guy, and honestly, other than this, I’m pretty happy. I just want to do this at my own pace.”

  “Tell him that,” Morgan said. “See how he responds.” Then he grinned. “Remember Nick’s Five Cs?”

  “Jeez, how could I forget?” Brad groaned.

  They looked at each other and laughed. “‘Coach, coxswain, crew, communication, and commitment’!”

  “It’s the communication that’s the important one in this case,” Morgan said. “So what’s your pace? How out are you?”

  Brad shrugged uncomfortably. “Not very, I guess. He hasn’t met my friends or anything.”

  “Your friends are a bunch of frat rats. You need grown-up friends,” Morgan pronounced. “What about actual sex? Have you gotten that far?”

  Brad felt his face heat right up, and that answered the question.

  “Look at you, Mr. Bashful. I’m not sure who this new Brad is, but I like him,” Morgan said.

  “That’s the problem, it’s a new Brad, and I need time to get used to him,” Brad said. “And yeah, we’ve had sex.”

  “So who’s the top?”

  Brad choked on his soda. “What’d you mean, who’s the top?” Brad demanded. “Isn’t that obvious? I’m no one’s bitch.”

  Morgan leaned back, smirking. “Let’s just say Drew’s not the total bottom you might think, and,” he said, looking at Brad intently, “I don’t think you’re quite the total top you appear.”

  “What the hell, Morgan? I ask you for help and you—”

  “Easy, Brad. Calm down,” Morgan said. “It’s not an insult. If it weren’t for the bottoms, the tops wouldn’t have anyone to fuck, would they?”

  “What?” Brad shook his head, trying to make sense of that. “Maybe that’s the problem. I didn’t think I was anyone’s bitch, but….” He gulped. “I was. Once. Kind of.”

  “And?” Morgan said.

  “I liked it.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that, either,” Morgan said gently. “It’s called being versatile, or, as I prefer to think of it, a good lay.”

  Brad hunched his shoulders miserably. “I don’t want to be gay. I don’t want to be the girl in the relationship.”

  Morgan stared, mouth agape. “Brad, somehow you’ve managed to acquire an idea of masculinity—to say nothing of homosexuality—that’s long out of date. Sexual position and gender role within a relationship aren’t even remotely the same thing.”

  “They’re not?” Brad looked puzzled.

  Morgan shook his head. “Uh… no. You’ve got to separate them. You maybe more than most people need to. They’re not the same,” he repeated. “The old dude/bitch dichotomy is nothing but heterosexual homophobia—the inability to conceive of sex as anything other than something between a man and a woman. If someone’s doing the fucking, he’s a man, because that’s what men do. So the one getting fucked must obviously be the woman, because a woman is by definition the one who gets dicked.”

  “Dichotomy. That’s a big word,” Brad said, laughing to cover up his nervousness.

  Morgan shot him a look that told him he’d seen right through it. “Try to stay with me, big guy. Those definitions don’t apply to us. We’re not heterosexuals, we’re gay. We’re not women and men, we’re men. And don’t go by appearances. I’ve known some pretty effeminate-looking guys who were hardcore tops, and some big macho brutes,” Morgan said, looking him right in the eye, “who couldn’t get enough cock up their asses.”

  “Aww, jeez, thanks for the visual,” Brad said. Part of him thought the idea was hot, but talking about this? This made him cringe in shame.

  Morgan rolled his eyes. “Any of this getting through to you? I know how much you play stupid, but we both know you’re not.”

  “Has everyone figured me out?” Brad demanded. Really, discussing his sex life with his former rival was embarrassing enough without the guy looking through him like he was glass.

  “Relax, Brad, your secret’s safe with me,” Morgan promised. “I don’t even think Stuart knows about your serious side. You might give him a chance, by the way. You bust his chops a lot, but he’s a great guy and good friend, and he and Jonathan haven’t figured out yet that not only are they going to start banging each other, but they’re probably going to live happily ever after too.”

  “Yeah?” Brad said. “I thought it was just me, but Nick mentioned something about them too.”

  “Nick and I talk about it a lot.” Morgan smiled. “But I’d like someone else to talk about them with, too, and maybe be there for them when it’s time too.”

  “That sounds nice,” Brad said.

  Brad walked out of lunch feeling buoyed, but still unsure. It was just so hard moving past the idiotic—he saw Morgan’s point, rationally at least—notions of male and female he’d picked up from his dad and working construction all those years. Some of those guys had probably been gay, but Brad sure hadn’t known it. Hell, he hadn’t known it about himself.

  Yeah, he was gay, but damn it, why did he have to be? It’d be so much easier if he weren’t. But with that realization came the knowledge that if he weren’t gay, he wouldn’t have Drew, maybe not even as a friend, and Drew… Drew had crept under his radar and into his life before he’d even realized what was going on. Now, he couldn’t willingly part with Drew any more than he’d willingly surrender a testicle.

  He kicked at a weed in the sidewalk. But damn, couldn’t they just go back to the way it had been, him fucking Drew and both getting off without making a federal case out of everything?

  Drew loved November in the Sacramento area. The weather was cool enough to justify his favorite suits and sweaters without being off-puttingly frigid, and he spent the weeks before his birthday getting back up to speed with his real estate business. It meant, more often than not, spending the early evenings going over the day’s work on the Bayard House with Brad by light of the work lamps, but there was no help for it, just like there was no help for the softening winter home market.

  He’d been lucky. His broker had thrown him a few last-minute desperate clients. Even though the commissions might’ve been lower than he was used to, he was grat
eful they existed at all, and after his basic living expenses, they all went to the renovation of the mayor’s mansion. He’d leave the tax implications to his accountant.

  He wished the finances on the project were what he’d projected them to be, but all things considered, the renovation was a success insofar as it was on schedule and close to budget. The city was paying more of Renochuck’s invoices, which helped, but really, why seek out small firms and then not pay them on time? He’d never take another public job again.

  So professionally, for a man about to turn twenty-nine, life was good, indeed. Personally, however, Drew wanted some changes in his next year of life. This back and forth with Brad over how or even whether to be open… he found it tiresome at best. He knew Brad had some worries about the crew, given Nick’s ongoing travails with the oversight committee, but other than that one moment at the dedication of the boat, Drew hadn’t been down to the boathouse.

  But really, after that brief moment in the Bayard House, Brad seemed to have scampered right back into the closet. Drew didn’t know what might’ve caused it. Was it the sex? They seemed to have backed off of that lately. It was one more thing for him to worry about.

  Drew doubted anything had happened on the jobsite. He’d fired more than one person over the years for homophobic cracks. It might be a part of that industry, but that didn’t mean he’d put up with it when he was paying the bills.

  Brad’s seriously dysfunctional relationship with his father? God alone knew how Brad had endured that man all those years, but anyone who kept his children living at home after college? As the psychiatrist said to the patient in plastic-wrap underwear, “Clearly I can see you’re nuts.”

  Drew really had no idea what the cause was, but both he and Brad knew that these were just proxies for deeper issues. At its root, Brad’s problem was with being gay, or at least accepting that he was gay. Drew himself had fought too long and too hard to be exactly who he was to be dragged back into the closet, and that was what the closet did. It imprisoned not just the one in it, but anyone with whom he was intimate. Brad’s secret shame was a disease that Drew perforce contracted too.

  Since he also had no intention of doing without Brad, the solution—to his way of thinking—was simple. Brad would come out. Everyone should. Drew didn’t believe in outing, although homophobic politicians caught with their hands down other men’s pants were fair game. But he was certainly willing to force the issue as the price of being together.

  Nick and Morgan had invited him to go dancing on his birthday the Monday before Thanksgiving, and he wanted to dance with his boyfriend. Despite his patience this summer and fall, he was going to push the issue.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “You asked what I wanted for my birthday, and what I want is for you to come dancing with me at Aspects,” Drew said.

  They sat on the sofa in his family room after dinner, their make-out sofa, although lately Brad had been too tired for that. Drew tried to be understanding, since after all, the top had the more physically demanding role, but trying also meant failing. He wanted to dance, yes, but not the closet hokey-pokey.

  They’d been going around and around on this subject, first via e-mail and now in person, all day. Earlier in the day he’d tried being gentle, but now Brad’s reluctance just angered him.

  “Jeez, not with the dancing thing,” Brad groaned. “You know I—”

  “Jeez, not with the self-loathing gay thing,” Drew snapped. “And yeah, I know a whole lot.”

  “Can we… can I take you to a nice restaurant? A Shot of Class? It’s supposed to be the best place in town. I… I just don’t want to do something so… I don’t know… gay?”

  Drew sighed. There were so many things he should’ve brought up sooner—like self-acceptance and accepting him and being out before dating him—but hadn’t. He’d been so enthralled by Brad and thrilled that Brad seemed just as interested that he let things go and swept a whole lot more under the rug. Now it was time to deal with it all, apparently.

  “I like to dance. As I told you before, I have never pushed you to do anything ‘gay’—and sidebar, I hate that you stigmatize something like that—but damnation, cannot we not just go out as a couple this once?”

  “I promise that later we’ll go out, just give me more time,” Brad pleaded, face anguished. “I’ll take you out at New Years. We’ll go dancing on New Year’s Eve.”

  But Drew sat there, his arms folded across his chest, just as unhappy. “You know what? I’ve given you plenty of time. I’m going out, with or without you. I’m going to spend the evening with Nick and Morgan doing what I like to do, even if I’m not doing it with the one I most want to do it with. I’m tired of you dragging me back into the closet. I suggest you spend the evening deciding what you really want, because this… this creeping around in the shadows with a boyfriend who can’t give and take equally, in bed or anywhere else, and who’s terrified someone he knows will see him out with me has to stop. I deserve better than that, and frankly, you deserve more out of life than that too.”

  “What… what’re you saying?” Brad said.

  “I’m saying that I want, need, and will goddamn have a boyfriend who’s a full partner in life, and not just someone who can barely say the word ‘gay’ but is perfectly willing to stick his dick up my ass!”

  “I’m not that bad,” Brad mumbled, looking at the table. He looked miserable, but by that point, Drew had no other idea how to reach him.

  “You’re a goose-down parka and a pair of mittens away from Narnia,” Drew said tiredly.

  “What’s Narnia?”

  Drew just stared. “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? Ring any bells?

  “I never saw the movie.”

  “It’s a book, Brad.”

  Brad was silent for a while. “I guess I should go… home or something.”

  “I’d say so, yes. I’m going out,” Drew said.

  “Can… can I see you tomorrow?”

  “That’s up to you,” Drew said flatly.

  “Are we taking a break?”

  Drew knew at any other time his heart would break hearing Brad say that, but that night…. “That’s entirely your decision, but I can’t keep doing this… I can’t go on being treated like a dirty secret, so you should probably take some time to decide what you want out of our relationship.”

  Drew mustered what dignity he had left and walked out of the family room, heading to the garage and his car. He was the one who always said he liked a challenge. Too bad this one beat him.

  “Goodbye,” he heard Brad say softly when he paused at the door.

  “Don’t be here when I get home, Brad.”

  As good as it would’ve felt, Drew didn’t even slam the door behind him. He might’ve been angry and hurt, but stomping and slamming out of his own house would have only been pathetic.

  “Where’s Brad?” Morgan asked, peering around Drew.

  “There is no Brad tonight,” Drew said levelly. He wouldn’t cry, he wouldn’t cry….

  “Drew?” Nick said, coming up from behind Morgan drying his hands on a towel. “What’s wrong?”

  Morgan pulled him inside and into a hug without waiting for more. “Come here. Nick, will you go put the kettle on? We’ll need tea for this.”

  “I want booze,” Drew said, lifting his head from Morgan’s chest, “not granny water.”

  “That’ll come later,” Morgan said, steering him toward the sofa. It was far more battered and disreputable-looking than the suede one Drew’d just abandoned, but at that moment, it looked like the sanctuary he needed.

  Nick returned in a few minutes with an electric teakettle and three mugs, tea bags already in them. “It won’t hurt to have some water in your stomach before you start drinking.”

  “I don’t actually feel like drinking all that much,” Drew admitted.

  “Who are you, and what’ve you done with the real Drew?” Nick said.

  “Nick,” Morgan warned.

>   Nick shot Morgan a frustrated look.

  “It’s okay, Morgan. I know he’s just trying to cheer me up, even if he’s bad at it,” Drew said.

  Morgan laughed as Nick sputtered.

  “So do you want to tell us what’s up?” Morgan said.

  Drew’s shoulders slumped. “I told Brad what I wanted to do for my birthday was go dancing. As a couple. He refused.”

  “I’m sorry,” Nick said.

  “Thanks. He knows what this means to me. I mean, we talked about it after Halloween. Did you know I sat out the Goblin Ball this year?”

  “Wow,” Nick muttered. At Morgan’s questioning look, he said, “It’s a big charity event he goes to every year. I figured he’d go even if he were on his death bed.”