Martin looked across the table at his lover, “Tell me about Johnny?”
Vince sat up and frowned, “You mean the guy at Eddie’s Tavern?”
Martin nodded.
“Johnny is the son of a guy I went to college with. He came into the Diner and asked me out. We had a good time, but he wasn’t the one for me. Despite how he looks, Johnny is a total bottom. Very submissive. He wanted full time Daddy Dom and I wasn’t going to be that for him. We split amicably. I can be an Alpha male, but I couldn’t give the kid what he needed, besides,” Vince laughed, “he didn’t know who Alanis Morissette was. He’d never seen The Godfather, for fuck’s sake. I couldn’t be with a man who doesn’t understand my cultural references.”
Martin twirled his cup in his hand, “Is that it? No other skeletons?”
“Like you, Marty, there are lots of guys out there that I fucked around with, some I dated, but I only lived with Avery. As for Avery, he’s a non-starter in my book. He’s a selfish asshole. He made me feel stupid and ruined how I saw myself. We hooked up just after Jess and Jilly moved out of the house. I was lonely and vulnerable. He made me feel like he’d take care of me if I’d just do everything he wanted and whenever I’d try to please him, well, he’d turn it back on me and we’d end up fighting. He’d make me feel that anything that went wrong in our relationship was my fault and I fell for it. When he left me, I felt like I deserved to lose him because I was unlovable.”
Vince bit his lower lip and shook his head, but then he looked Martin straight in the eye. “I started drinking, doing drugs, hitting the clubs hard. One night Gio, Jess, and the guys from Eddie’s showed up and did an intervention. They made me see that I was hurting more people than just myself. It took a year of therapy to get Avery out from under my skin and to set my head in the right space. When he called the other day I didn’t want to talk to him. I knew he’d try his best to weasel his way back into my life, but he’s not going to, Marty. I’m with you now, well,” he hesitated, “I hope I am because you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Not because you brought me to Paris.” Vince laughed and this time the laugh reached his eyes, “But that didn’t hurt. I’ll admit it, Marty. I’m in love with you and I’m falling deeper every minute I spend with you.” Vince hesitated, “There is one thing I’m going to need you to work on.”
“You mean that I tend to drop my clothes wherever I take them off?” Martin smiled.
Vince nodded, “You’re a slob, Marty. I can’t live like that. We’ll have to find some kind of compromise or something.”
Martin reached out and his eyes sparkled as he trapped Vince’s hands between his. “I promise, if we decide to make this permanent I will be better and if needed, I will have a housekeeper come in every day to keep things neat.” He rubbed a thumb over the back of Vince’s hand. “Okay, so I guess it’s my turn, unless there are any other earth shattering revelations you’re holding back.”
Vince shook his head, “I’m sure I’m missing something, but I think I’ve hit the highlights.”
Martin released his lover’s hand and leaned back in his chair. Taking a deep breath, he fixed his gaze on Vince and began. “My birth name was Matinov Kulowitz. I’m Russian-Ukrainian Orthodox Jew, but I’m non-practicing. My father became a bank manager after he immigrated from the Ukraine in nineteen seventy. I was born two years later and my twin sisters, Rivka and Rachel were born two years after that. I had a normal childhood until I was twelve. Just before my twelfth birthday, my mother gave birth to my little brother, Kristoff. He was sort of a surprise, I think. On my birthday, instead of a party, all of us kids ended up at my Nana’s. My mother disappeared. No one told us anything. No one spoke about what happened to my mother. Nothing. In our family, you didn’t talk about anything personal. I started classes part-time at UC Davis when I was sixteen. At seventeen, I tested out of all my classes. Got a GED and continued at the University. Spring term I told my Dad that I was gay.” Martin paused and looked down at his hands, “He didn’t take it well.”
“He threw you out, right?” Vince cocked his head, watching his lover chew his lower lip.
“Not exactly. That’s what I tell most people, but it’s not the truth. My father told me I couldn’t tell any of our relatives, including my siblings. I couldn’t bring any of my boyfriends around. I couldn’t dress ‘gay’ in his house.” Martin made air quotes with his fingers. “He never said I had to leave. He just made it too hard to stay. I wasn’t ashamed of who I was when I told him, but within a few weeks, the way he’d look at me, how he scrutinized everything I said and did. He made me feel as if I was an embarrassment to the family. He hardly spoke to me, much less looked at me.” Tears formed in Martin’s eyes as he remembered those days.
“Anyway, two guys in one of my software programming classes had a room to rent so I got it. Dad paid for my tuition, but nothing else. I worked two jobs and did the best I could. My roommates, Tito Bastien and Illyan Novovitch, became my friends and later business partners. They were a little older and we all had the need to prove ourselves. I stumbled on the program that is now used as the base code for all GPS systems. Tito and Illyan helped me perfect it and two years later we did. I knew if we could get our company up and running we really had something. I was 19 and too stupid to really know how things worked in the real world.” Martin chuckled, “I did the paperwork and submitted an application for a small business loan at a branch of my father’s bank. I didn’t find out until years later that my father got hold of the loan papers and approved them. One year later, we paid off every penny we owed. As I said before, by the time I was twenty, I was a millionaire.”
Martin kept his eyes on a spot on the table, “I was obsessed with being a success. I was rude, often dismissive of others, arrogant, and I still suffer from that at times.” He glanced up at Vince. “I’m going to count on you to keep me in line, babe. I know you won’t take any of my crap. I couldn’t be with someone who submitted to me easily. I need a man who’s my equal, not a doormat.”
“Don’t worry. I think I can handle you.” Vince took Martin’s hand and intertwined their fingers and gave them a little squeeze of support. “Keep going.”
“I also fucked everything that moved in my twenties, including my business partner, Nova. He was brilliant and handsome. We were so alike in so many ways. He didn’t seem to care that I screwed around, or at least, I didn’t think he did. This went on for six years.”
Vince raised his eyebrows, but didn’t interrupt.
“I think I was twenty-nine when one day, he came to my office and told me he wasn’t going to have sex with me anymore. He explained he didn’t want to feel like someone’s whore. I got pretty angry and said some things I regretted, but with my pride, it took a year before I apologized.” Martin pulled his hand back, “When I was thirty I made my first billion. At thirty-two, I bought Tito out. He never could manage his money. He was thirty-five and already owed alimony to three wives. I gave him $2.2 billion which was far less than I should have, but he took it. Three years later, Nova came to me and asked me to buy him out.” Martin laughed, “Nova wasn’t Tito. He knew what his portion of the company was worth. He’d met a man he wanted to be with. He said he didn’t want to spend his life alone like me.” He shook his head, “Boy, did that hit home, but I thought he was crazy to want to be with just one guy. He’s still with him after twelve years. They married when it was legal in California and they’ve been married ever since.” Martin frowned, “I guess, in a way, I was upset he didn’t choose me.”
“Do you still have feelings for Nova?” Vince watched his lover’s reaction.
“No… no. I’m older and wiser now. Even if he had chosen me, we wouldn’t have lasted. If I’m being honest, I didn’t love him. I was just jealous.” Martin grinned, “As I said before, I’m a jealous kind of guy, but even that has mellowed over the years.”
“Any other serious relationships?”
Martin’s face showed his sadness, “Un
fortunately, no. I thought I was in love with one of the male prostitutes I used to see on a regular basis. I would pay him to spend weekends with me sometimes. He'd listen to me rattle on and pretend to be interested. I’d take him places, travel, eat out, then one night, he held me after we had sex and he told me he wasn’t coming back. He said he was sorry I was so lonely and that I needed to find someone who could love me, but he wasn’t it.” Martin sighed, “I never saw him again. I found out through the grapevine that he died of an overdose about two weeks after we stopped seeing each other.” Tears again threatened to overflow, but with an angry brush of the heels of his hands, Martin pushed his emotions back into their box.
“I’m sorry, Marty.”
Martin shook his head, then looked up at his lover. “So you see, Vinnie, I’m kind of broken. I’m clingy and needy and I probably need therapy.” He smiled sadly, “And for you I’d go.”
“Did you ever find out what happened to your mother? Did you find out where she went?”
Martin chuckled sadly. “I hired a private investigator when I was about twenty-five. I wanted to find her and confront her about abandoning us.” This time the dam of tears Martin had been trying valiantly to suppress burst. “Apparently, she had died on my twelfth birthday. She committed suicide. According to the PI, she had a history of clinical depression and add in postpartum depression, well….”
Vince stood and circled the table until he held his lover in his arms. “I am so sorry no one told you.”
“No one. Hell, until my sister, Rachel, wanted money to send her kid through college, no one in my family contacted me after I left. She said Dad acted as if I’d died.”
“You said before your father had passed.”
“Yeah, he died a few years ago. I found out because Rachel let it slip. No one told me at the time. No one invited me to sit shiva even though I was his eldest son. I suppose I can’t blame them. I cut them off, too. I never called, never tried to heal the rift between us all. Rachel knew I was rich, but she didn’t know I was gay. When I told her, she took it well. I don’t know…,” Martin shrugged. “Maybe I should try to reconnect with them.” He smiled, “I did have my lawyer set up college funds for all my nieces and nephews. I got thank you notes from each of them, but no one has called since.”
Martin sighed, sad eyes staring at his lover. “Am I just trying to become part of a functional family by being with you, Vinnie?”
Vince laughed, “If you are, you’ve picked one of the most dysfunctional families around. Between my biological Mafia family and my overly protective and insane gay family, trust me, I’d really think long and hard about this, Marty, before you ask me to marry you.” He squeezed his lover tighter as he hugged him, then he let his hand slip under Martin’s chin, lifting it and giving him a kiss that reassured his lover that he was more than welcome to become part of his life. “I love you, Marty. I already can’t imagine my life without you. You don’t have the greatest social skills, that’s why you have Ray.” He chuckled, “But we’ll work on getting you back with your family if you want. You don’t ever have to be lonely anymore. How about we go upstairs and I prove to you how much you mean to me, okay?”
Martin stood, but instead of taking Vince’s hand and walking toward the stairs, he wrapped his arms around his lover and buried his head against his shoulder. It took a moment for Vince to realize that Martin was crying. Pulling his lover tighter to him, they swayed together and Vince stroked his hair, shushing him and calming the tears that slowly dissipated.
In that moment, Martin realized what he needed to do. There was no way he was taking a chance of losing Vince. They would be leaving tomorrow evening, but he had one last trip for them to make on their way to the airport. He knew he loved this man with all his heart and that fact was not going to change.
Stepping back a few inches, Martin smiled weakly at his lover. “I want you to make love to me, Vinnie. Make me scream your name, twice.”
“Twice?” Vince grinned then shrugged. “I think I can do that. Maybe before we go to dinner, let’s take a lover’s walk along the Seine. I don’t care how cold it is. I just want to be with you.”
Vince kissed Martin with the passion he felt for this man. Every fiber of both their bodies joined to tell them that what they were feeling was right. Common sense said it was too soon, but they knew that common sense was dead wrong. Leading the way up the stairs, Vince didn’t gripe when both of them dropped their clothes to the floor and stumbled to the bed.
*****
As Vince dressed and packed the next morning, Martin met a courier at the front door. The man dressed in black motorcycle leathers had him sign for the small blue box which he then stuck in his back pocket. More sightseeing filled their day and as late afternoon arrived, Martin asked their driver, Julio, to take them back to the Eiffel Tower. Taking Vince’s hand, he led them to a spot about 100 yards from the metal frame. Vince took more pictures with his phone and sent them to his daughter, not noticing that Julio had followed them to this spot and was talking with Martin quietly and intently. Vince walked back, but when Julio saw him, he turned and walked away with a grin. Martin took Vince’s hand and they both stared up at the monument. Vince gave his lover a running commentary about the place they were at and then he started to take a step forward, but found that Martin held him back. Vince turned expecting to see Martin standing there, probably distracted by something, but instead he had to look down and when he saw what his lover was holding in his hand, his eyes started to blur.
“I love you, Vinnie and I know you love me. Please, babe, will you marry me?” He held the black tungsten carbide ring with a circle of embedded diamonds surrounding the center of the band. It was the one he had admired so much at the jeweler’s and here it was being offered up by the man he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
Vince was speechless. All he could do was nod his head tearfully until he found the words. “Yes, Marty, I will marry you.”
Martin slipped the band onto Vince’s left hand and stood to embrace his lover. They kissed for what felt like an hour in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower with Julio capturing it all on video. He stayed a few feet behind the two men as they headed back to the car to head for the airport. Martin and Vince sat facing each other, smiling and laughing as Vince held up his ring and toyed with it, debating on whether or not to wake his family to let them know or wait until the morning. Six hours later, they landed and headed to Vince’s townhouse to make love for the first time as an engaged couple.
Martin called Jess and arranged for the three of them to meet at Veritas. When they walked into the restaurant, everyone was there. Before Vince could announce their news, Doris pointed to the ring on Martin and Vince’s fingers and squealed with joy.
“You got married?” Jess laughed and demanded her pictures.
“Not married, baby.” Vince smiled, “Just engaged because I want you all to be there for the wedding June sixteenth so mark your calendars. You’re all going to need time off.”
“Where?” Gio shook his brother’s hand.
“Italy. We will handle everything, you guys, so please come.”
A rousing chorus of congratulations and agreement filled the room as everyone got the details about their engagement.
Epilogue
December-One Year Later
“Crap! We forgot the gifts.” Martin shook his head, “Listen, I’ll take Rick here and we’ll go back to the car and get them. Mitchell, stay with Vince. Okay?”
The six foot five inch man, well dressed in a black business suit and overcoat, nodded as he stepped up to Vince. After an incident in Brussels, bodyguards had become a permanent fixture for the two of them. Martin had asked Vince to marry him in the shadow of the Eiffel tower. He’d dropped to one knee as he held his lover’s hand. Martin had known he was taking a big risk asking Vince on that trip, but it had paid off with the love of his life saying yes.
Due to both of them having family and business obligation
s, organizing the wedding had taken six months, but on the sixteenth of June, they’d stood on the terrace that overlooked Lake Como behind Martin’s villa. International wedding planners had pulled off the three hundred guest ceremony and reception like a military maneuver. Every contingency had been planned for with only a few minor snafus occurring. Several famous singers delighted the guests and even Vince had surprised Martin with a flash mob dance to one of their favorite songs. In both their minds, everything that day was magical.
As dawn approached, the two boarded the jet and headed to Fiji where Martin got the worst sunburn of his entire life and Vince was stung by a jellyfish. All in all it was a wonderful and memorable honeymoon before they returned to normal life in Boston a few weeks later.
Vince showed his prowess at balancing his own work managing Kitty’s and his properties with his obligations as Martin Kull’s husband on the executive dinners circuit. In fact, it never ceased to amaze Martin at the number of people who knew Vince from his family connections and university years. Vince showed confidence during these functions, conversing expertly on subjects such as yachts, cars, horses, and vacation spots only the very wealthy could afford. Afterwards they would go home and fall into bed, groan about how much their feet or back hurt, then make love before falling asleep.
Martin had rented out Veritas and all of Vince’s family, Ray with his wife and daughter, as well as their growing circle of friends were present. Doris had a new boyfriend that seemed to be a winner. Eddie was dating a man twenty years his junior, but they seemed happy. Pete and Johnny held hands the entire evening. Pete showed off the stylish leather collar encircling Johnny’s neck that proclaimed to the world that he belonged to one leather Dom only. Max and Kevin had begged off with good reason. Their surrogate was due any moment with their first child so all was forgiven. Rich and Jess were engaged after forming their own property investment and design company with only a little help from Vince. It was a few days before Christmas and the night air told everyone it was going to snow even though the weatherman said it wouldn’t.
Songs of Love : Books 1-3 Page 27