Technically that was true, though in his heart, he and Harrison had never broken up.
“So you’re single,” she said with a firm nod. “Why wouldn’t you be interested in meeting Adriano?”
To his mother, there was no good reason he would pass up the opportunity. She knew her boy well. Or, she knew the image he kept up. The one from five years ago, when he was still in his twenties. Back then, he’d always been up for dinner and conversation with someone new—and if the evening ended with the pair of them back at his apartment wearing nothing more than their smiles, well all the better. But that was before he’d met Harrison Miller—his Ari.
After tonight, she could poke and prod all she liked, and he’d fill her in on the details. After tonight, he would tell her why not Adriano. But first he had to make magic happen at the Bentley’s Christmas party.
“So how is Cátia? Last I heard she’d gone to France. Is she still over there?”
His papai grunted. “
“Cátia’s fine.” His mother waved at him dismissively. “But we’re talking about you.”
“Are we?” Paulo played coy. “I’ve told you all about my trip, my plans for next week, and what I’m thinking of getting for cousin Maria’s wedding. I don’t know what else we could—”
“Adriano!” Mamãe lamented loudly. “Don’t you want to see a picture at least? He swims in his free time, you know. Quite trim and healthy.”
“If we meet, Mamãe, it will be casually. At a party perhaps or—”
“But—!”
“
Gabriela Fernández’s eyes went wide. She blinked as if blinded by the early morning sunlight. Slowly she turned to face her son. “You’ve told your father what’s going on but not me?”
“No,” he promised. Though how the old man guessed was beyond Paulo. He supposed when one never spoke, they had a lot of time to listen, to observe, to think. But Paulo had never taken his father for much of a listener. “Mamãe, we’ve got the Bentley party tonight.”
Papai made a short pfft noise. “”
“We’re already in Midday.” His mother rolled her eyes.
Papai and Winifred Bentley, the matriarch of the Bentley family, had long ago fallen out—probably over something stupid—and every December he dug his heels in and made a production (insofar as a stoic ever made a production about anything) about not going.
They were all so used to it, that Paulo’s mother simply said, “If you don’t go, Winnie wins.”
Papai grunted.
He’d be there.
“Why would the party matter?” His mother blinked her dark eyes, confusion reading transparently on her face. He imagined that she must be running through every guest she could remember from Christmases past. The who’s who of upper society. Old money families, politicians, celebrities, magnates of all sorts, directors and CEOs, sports figures, and various other society people. Plenty of eligible bachelors in that mix.
With a deep breath, Paulo said slowly, “I’m meeting someone there tonight.” Before she’d even fully formed her smile, he said, “Harrison Miller.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I said no, Paulo, and I mean no. Mother Mary, knock some sense into my son’s head!”
“Mamãe, I don’t think Mother Mary works that way.”
“No, Paulo. No, no, no, you can not be thinking about that boy.”
“‘That boy’?” he repeated, trying not to laugh. “You used to call him, ‘my son’ and tell him how you wished you could replace me with him!”
“I was wrong. Blinded. Obviously.”
“Mamãe.”
“
She made a wet noise of disbelief. “Harrison Miller. A man raped by a woman. And such a frail, old woman? What a lie. He cheated on you with her, Paulo. And he lied to you. You were right to cast him off. Unworthy of you.”
Paulo clamped down hard on his tongue, literally, to keep from saying what was on his mind. Instead he silently passed the basket of bread over to his father who, with equal silence, took it from him. His mother had made her opinions on Harrison clear to the whole family from the moment she’d heard about the rape, and she continued to have an opinion about it long after the others stopped caring. That was three years ago.
It devastated her when Paulo and Harrison stayed together, but she actually threw a dinner party when Harrison pushed Paulo away the year before.
“Will you excuse me?” Paulo asked, standing up from the table.
“Paulo!”
“
It was a spacious suite, but definitely not big enough for him, his mother, and her vile opinion of Harrison. Especially because of the way it began to niggle, eating at him, causing little flare-ups of rage.
Paulo had done what was asked of him—he’d given Harrison the space he’d requested. But that was all. His beautiful Ari saw himself as broken. He truly thought a few panic attacks or even a couple months of celibacy would turn Paulo off him forever. Sometimes Paulo could hold it in his head: this is how Ari feels about himself—this isn’t about me.
But then his mother got to talking, talking, talking, and Paulo’s understanding of the situation changed. Ari really thinks I’m just one massive cock and balls, and if I’m not getting off, I’m not happy? Well, fuck him.
Instead of working through the sex issues together, Harrison sent Paulo out to…what? Get his rocks off with other men? He’d had a year and a half to get that through his head, and it still pissed him off whenever he thought about it.
Paulo splashed some water on his face at the bathroom sink, and let out a shaky breath. Every part of his upbringing had taught him he shouldn’t have waited around—especially not after Harrison stood him up last Christmas. When he was a kid, his mother walked out on them for a week. It was one of the only times he and his father had a heart-to-heart.
You don’t wait around for anybody, Paulo. Do you understand?
He did…sort of…but Mamãe wasn’t gone seven days before Paulo’s tia—his mother’s youngest sister—was spending the night. No one dared leave a Fernández man, right? Mamãe came back. What else could she do?
There were some nights when Paulo tore up a number slyly passed to him by a gorgeous guy at a club, or he waved off a free drink from a hunk he would have banged without second thought in his younger years, all so he could go home and jerk off alone. In those moments, his anger won again. Who the hell was Harrison to decide what was right for the both of them? Didn’t he realize that Paulo was living in a state of constant waiting? Constant longing?
He’d eventually calm himself down again, breathe, remember that what they’d had together was worth this torment. Things would be OK-ish. Then, when Prudence would call to chat or to invite Paulo out, he refused to ask about Harrison beyond, “Is he OK, Pru?” Somewhere deep inside, Paulo yet had a sense of self-preservation. Pru was good about answering with a blunt yes, no, or the occasional getting there.
It worked fine for a while, until somewhere around month eight, when impatience took hold and Paulo almost gave in and betrayed Harrison’s wishes.
He was tired.
Lonely.
Hurting.
Longing for Harrison Miller like he was oxygen.
So Paulo dressed for a first date and styled his hair, dabbed on cologne, all to attract a mate—just for the one night. Then he got in his car and he drove. Drove past the clubs he frequented, past the high-rise apartments of ex-boyfriends who would be down for a quick fuck, drove straight on to midtown. He knew he shouldn’t. God, he shouldn’t. But he just couldn’t stand being alone anymore and there was only one person in the universe he wanted to be with.
Paulo pulled into the parking lot of Harrison’s apartment complex and
waited. It would be so simple. All he had to do was climb that outer stairwell and walk to Ari’s door.
If he knocked…Harrison would greet him.
Paulo’s heart had lunged just thinking about it. He would invite Paulo in, ask him to stay for dinner. They would get drunk on cheap wine, make love until they were stupid, and then Paulo would sneak out in the morning. They could both pretend it hadn’t happened, that Paulo had been stronger and had given Harrison the space he’d needed. But Christ, just to touch him again. Stroke Ari’s cheek, whisper kisses against his lips and neck…
Paulo would freely have admitted it if anyone asked; he didn’t understand the whole relapse thing. For three years after Ms. Ashmore had assaulted him at The Grand Heights, Harrison had worked on healing, forgiving, and living. They’d gotten through it.
Then last year, it was like all those stitches were just ripped open again with one phone call from the district attorney: we're going to trial. Seeing Ari hurting like that ripped Paulo’s stitches loose too. And under those stitches was pure hate. He wanted revenge on Ashmore for what she’d done to Harrison, for what she’d done to Paulo. How dare that whore make him look weak and incompetent in front of the man he loved? Because no matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t take Harrison’s pain away for him.
There were nights Harrison clung to him and cried and begged to be held down and taken hard, so Paulo did—but Harrison cried afterward. Then there were other nights where he didn’t want to be touched at all, so Paulo stayed away, and that wasn’t right either. But their being temporarily out of sexual rhythm had never made Paulo want to leave him permanently.
After almost an hour in the parking lot the night Paulo had gone to see Harrison, he gave up. He was too filled with creeping darkness to intrude on what he hoped was a healing time for Ari.
It was probably for the best. After all, by driving home unseen, Paulo could pretend he’d at least done this one thing right. He’d been the upstanding boyfriend. The patient boyfriend. The giving boyfriend. Not the shithead who had given in to craving and loneliness and had gone against Ari’s wishes. No one had to be the wiser.
<<< >>>
Paulo splashed another couple handfuls of water on his face and watched as drops fell from his nose and chin.
Pru said Harrison would be at the Bentley Christmas party, she was certain—and Paulo was going to do things right this time. That rage he felt? He’d make certain it stayed hidden.
Chapter Three:
His Guest, Charlie
What do you do for a living?
Harrison had already explained his profession to five or six individuals and at least half a dozen small groups as he mingled his way around the large, open ballroom. He tried not to be too obvious as he looked for Paulo, but every time someone new flitted in the corner of his eye, it was all he could do not to whip his head around. He’d yet to find Paulo, so talk of careers continued.
Harrison Miller was a therapist, but where there was the real version of what he did, there was also his “party version.” The party version was flexible enough to work at an intimate dinner with friends, at the club throwing back shots of neon-green something or other, or at fancy galas like the Bentley family’s Christmas party.
“I’m a therapist,” he’d say with a charming smile. People were almost always interested in that—always wanted to know how he’d gotten into the profession, what it entailed, and universally, what was the most fucked-up thing he’d ever heard.
“Well, I couldn’t tell you that,” he’d taunt. “Professional ethics.”
Please, they’d beg. Just change the names, tweak the situation, change the XYZ so we can dig into someone else’s personal misery and feel better about ourselves! Inevitably, pretending they’d wrenched it out of him, Harrison told them about “Charlie,” a patient of his with Dissociative Identity or “multiple personality disorder.” It was interesting how people seemed to move in a bit closer at that. They were hungry for abnormal psychology, informed only by the sensationalized drama of television and movies.
They couldn’t get enough of Charlie’s five personalities. Yes, one of them was a woman, and there was an elderly Asian man as well. Yes, one of them was violent. No, Charlie didn’t know when he’d switched between them.
They loved it, and more importantly, they believed it and would get stuck on “Charlie” for the duration of the conversation, never digging deeper—at least not about anyone real.
Truthfully, Harrison had never believed in “multiple personality disorder” and was on one side of an ongoing psychological debate that believed DI was simply an offshoot of other disorders. He’d set up the elaborate—if not entertaining—farce, not to make himself popular, but to protect what he really did as a clinical psychologist.
More importantly, he did it to protect his patients.
Before his assault, Harrison had been studying to go into geriatric psychology, but as part of his own journey of healing, he’d changed paths. It paid next to nothing, being a rape counselor, and it set him back years in training, but it was one of the best choices he’d ever made and he didn’t regret it for a second. There were days when he floundered without a clue as to what to do for himself, but at least he could provide a listening ear for others; people like Molly, whom he wished he’d met under any other circumstances.
Her assault happened on Christmas Eve the year before. While Harrison was halfway across the city playing designated driver for Pru, Molly was leaving her shift at the bar, whistling, with no idea one of her customers—a nice, nondescript kind of guy who’d told her about his wife and kids earlier that evening—was skulking close behind. Her roommate had already gone home for Christmas, and Molly was looking forward to a bath and a quiet evening alone.
“My plans fell through, Harry,” she snapped angrily. It was the only time he ever heard her say a bitter word, though she repeated the phrase at least once at every session.
What Molly couldn’t do—maybe would never be able to do—was understand that she didn’t make it happen. The crime was opportunistic; another day, his victim would have been another girl.
“But I spoke with him,” she’d insisted, sobbing into her tissue.
Oh Molly, you’ve spoken to thousands of people in your life, he wanted to say. Probably a hundred that day alone.
Opportunistic.
That word was Harrison’s life raft. When he would wake up alone at night—Paulo gone away on business or simply stewing in the other room—Harrison could only calm the swirl of guilt and fear by reminding himself that he wasn’t special. If he’d accepted the kitchen-hand position at Berringer’s to pay his way through college, rather than duty clerk at The Grand Heights, it would’ve been someone else.
What didn’t make it better was that it was someone else; another, and another, and another. Harrison had met the men who’d come forward, he knew their names, was now related to one of them through marriage: Aidan. Together they found strength, together they told their story.
How many people over the years had found themselves in the wrong place at the worst time? Nothing special. Just another victim. Those nights as he assured himself it wasn’t his fault, he’d reach over and touch Paulo’s cold pillow and whisper, “I’m nothing special, Paulo.” Sometimes he still did.
Harrison’s first therapist, the man he saw right after Ms. Ashmore assaulted him, had helped as well as he could. But when the PTSD returned with the announcement of the trial, Harrison thought he might try a female therapist instead.
Molly had wanted a male therapist. That’s what she’d told her doctor, and the police officer, her mom, and the psychiatrist. She’d wanted a male therapist, because not all men were evil. She needed to believe that, and if Harrison was honest with himself, that’s why he’d started seeing Dr. Elizabeth.
Almost all Harrison’s clients were male, and most knew their attacker—boyfriends, buddies, guys they met in nightclubs. Sometimes drugs were involved, o
ften they were not. But only two of the men he’d counseled were the victims of women.
Paulo…she…I didn’t want it but she…
When all Harrison had wanted in the world was to be held and comforted, Paulo had expanded with rage, filling spaces Harrison didn’t even know existed, becoming someone Harrison had never seen before. Paulo’s anger wasn’t directed at Harrison, and logically, Harrison knew it, but it was hard not to get hit by flying debris when standing out in a tornado.
Eventually, as Harrison healed, Paulo’s outward anger began to diminish, too, and they fell into a routine. Almost like old times. They made dinner together, they had nights out with friends, they shared secret smiles, and laughed. Ashmore didn’t own them, and she couldn’t dictate their emotions. They made love all the time back them. Paulo would kiss him and slowly remove Harrison’s glasses, setting them aside. Even after laser eye surgery, Paulo still mimed taking the glasses off. It had made Harrison laugh every time as Paulo said, “Don’t worry, I’ll set these somewhere safe.”
Then he was called to testify in court, and like shaking a settled snow globe, his world was emotional bits sent flying. It might have been even worse for Paulo, because what shook Harrison seemed to smash the whole globe in which Paulo had been holding his rage. Suddenly the sulking, growling, snapping tornado was back. Ashmore this, and Ashmore that, and if Paulo ever got his hands on her, and revenge. Constant talk of revenge.
When Harrison finally faced her in court—his head full of Paulo’s torment—he testified almost more for Paulo’s benefit than his own. But he’d done it all while wearing glasses he no longer needed.
<<< >>>
“All right,” Pru said, hooking his arm with hers. He blinked hard, startled by the sudden contact. “You’ve been staring at this Santa ice sculpture for like fifteen minutes. They’re having a charity raffle in the west hall for a bottle of Macallan sixty-year-old scotch, and I’ve bought us both a few entries. Plus there’s more Dom Pérignon than you can shake a stick at. Let’s go pour some down our throats. C’mon.”
Pru was an expert at holding her drink, which unfortunately came from more years of practice than not. She wasn’t wobbly yet, but her cheeks were already warm. She’d definitely been hitting the bubbly.
Seeds of Tyrone Box Set Page 48