When Irish Eyes Are Sparkling

by Tom Collins

  The gent back there, with my flavor on his tongue, his mind still spinning at his good fortune, would have understood, and likely have forgiven me the fantasy.

  *Liam*

  There were two full baths in the partially furnished, three-bedroom apartment that my twin Brendan, his fiancé, Jillian, our cousin Erin and me, shared. Both of those bathrooms would be busy for the next couple of hours. Everyone would be washing off the stink of food service. I figured on taking a shower when the one I shared with Bren and Jill came free, if I was still awake. If not, I’d clean up in the morning.

  In the meantime, I went straight to my room.

  I shut my door, locking it behind; Erin didn’t always knock. I turned the box fan at the foot of my bed to low, for the cooling and the white noise, and moved around the side of the bed. I stripped facing the bed, dropping the green polo at my feet and the baggy, black shorts to the floor. Stepping out of them, I toed off my walking shoes, kicking them off to the side.

  My cock had calmed after Oliver left—giving only the occasional flare-up when my thoughts strayed too far toward the bulge in the front of his uniform—but I never sported less than a chub, even on the subway coming home. Now, it came back to its full length so fast it almost hurt. I pushed my underwear down and stepped out of them. Two seconds later I was on my knees on the pile of clothes, fucking my left fist, two seconds after that my eyes crossed before rolling up into my head.

  Coming to my senses, I kept stroking. I gathered up as much of the cream I’d sprayed on the clothes under my knees as I could for lubrication. I imagined I was sucking him, and he was groaning and running his hands through my hair. My balls tightened, without thinking I collected a blob of come from my cock and sucked it off my finger, thinking of it as Oliver’s. The thought and flavor together made me come so hard I would’ve ended up on my knees had I not already been there.

  I crawled up onto the bed, still rumpled from last night, and flopped on my back with a huge sigh. I woke a few hours later from a dream involving Oliver and a blueberry crumble, with the last shudders of an orgasm stiffening my legs. I lay there, panting and amazed at myself. I hadn’t had a fully wet dream in three years. I fell back to sleep on top of the coverlet.

  Next morning I stripped my bed and hauled the messed sheets, and the clothes I’d come all over last night, and put them in the corner to wash later. I entered the bathroom, just as Jill exited; her algae-green hair caught my eye. “Oh, wow. Nice one,” I told her. Her freshly washed face beamed a smile of thanks as she headed for the kitchen. Spotting myself in the vanity, I paused and looked at my hair. I’d never paid it much attention, but today it looked flat and lifeless.

  Maybe you didn’t look good enough, my inner critic suggested. Maybe if you thought about how you look, the way Jill does, Oliver would’ve wanted your digits.

  I yanked the bathroom door open, “Jill?”

  She came out of the kitchen with a couple Pop-tarts in hand. Not that you could “come out” of the kitchen when, in fact, the kitchen, living room and dinning room are all one, only separated from each other by flooring type and a breakfast bar.

  “Your towel’s slipping,” she said. I snatched at it, stopping it just in time. “You rang?” she prodded.

  “Yeah, I was wondering if there might be something in this bathroom, amongst all these potions of yours that might make my hair look…” I paused and took a second to secure my towel while trying to think of the right adjective.

  “Like a shampoo commercial?” she suggested.

  “Yeah, exactly!” I confirmed with enthusiasm.

  “This is about that guy with the sexy hair and tight, blue pants last night, isn’t it?” she asked with a crooked grin.

  “Who?” I tried, but she wasn’t buying it.

  “Oh, c’mon…the one with the eyes and the great ass in the snuggly-fit uniform.” She’d been with Brendan so long I couldn’t fool her any more.

  “Who has a great ass? What did I miss?” Erin demanded, coming in on a thing already in progress, as usual.

  “That new partner of Gabe’s,” she supplied.

  “Who? Oliver Something?”

  “Yeah, Liam’s gone on him, like I’ve never seen before,” she confirmed.

  “No, it’s noth—” I tried to protest, but here was Bren coming from the hall behind me.

  “Liam’s in love again?” He turned to me, incredulous, “Already?”

  “Well…yes,” I admitted with a sheepish grin, “but it’s different this—”

  “That clears up the ‘cup’a Liam’ thing last night,” Erin interrupted as he flopped into his ragged, garage sale recliner.

  “Who is she?” Brendan asked.

  “He,” said Erin.

  “What?” from Bren.

  Jill attempted to clarify, “No, definitely ‘who,’ it’s a ‘he,’ Oliver Somebody-or-other. He’s Gabe’s new partner.”

  “No more pining over Tammy, that’s for sure,” Erin snickered.

  “Hang on…it’s a guy?” Brendan asked.

  I ignored our cousin, focusing on my twin. “It’s different this time!”

  “I’ll say! An outie instead of an innie is a pretty big difference, isn’t it?” Erin quipped. He was starting to irritate me.

  “Shut your pie hole!” I told him then turned back to Brendan. “Like, you know how when you’re in love, thoughts of that person keep distracting you from what you’re supposed to be doing, making everything you do harder? Well, this is like the opposite of that. It’s like what I should be doing is thinking about him, but everything else keeps getting in the way.”

  Erin stared like I was crazy.

  “Fffffftt…’bout damned time,” Bren said.

  “What?!” demanded Erin.

  “I said it’s about goddamned time,” he reiterated. To me he said, “I was beginning to think you’d never grow a sack and go for it.”

  “Whagi—bu—I don—how di—” was Erin’s witty retort.

  “We’ve never talked about this though,” I protested. Bren came over to me.

  “Bro…you think there’s anything about you I don’t know?” he asked, looking me in the eye. “What’s more, I probably knew it before you did. You’ve never been very introspective and have pretty much lived life by the seat of your pants. That's cool, ‘cause it’s working for you, but I saw this coming years ago.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know…maybe it was the time you almost ran down that old lady checking out some roller-blader’s spandex-clad ass? Or it could’ve been when you couldn’t stop sucking on your fingers every time Harry came on the screen while we were watching Order of the Phoenix?”

  “Ewwww…nasty, Li!” Erin cried, faking disgust.

  “You’re hell bent for leather, Bub,” I told him, pointing threateningly.

  “Oh, bisexual and a leather man to boot, kinky,” he teased. I ignored him.

  “Of course I was sucking my fingers,” I said to Bren. “I was eating popcorn.”

  “You can’t claim popcorn salt when your fingers didn’t leave your mouth for fifteen minutes straight. Besides, you were sportin’ wood when we left the theatre.”

  “I had no idea. I mean, I knew I was…” I briefly indicated my nether regions, “but I had no idea I was…” I mimed sucking my fingers for a second. “Am I that transparent?” I was concerned and embarrassed.

  “Not to others, but you are to me,” he assured me. He cupped the back of my neck and brought our foreheads together, “because you're not just my brother. You’re the me I would’a been if I wasn’t me,” he reminded me with a grin. I smiled back.

  “Now, what’s the problem?” he asked, stepping back. His nose wrinkled, “Besides the way you whiff, that is.”

  “I can’t seem to get any response from him—Oliver, I mean. It’s like I’m this lion, roaring at Mount Rushmore, and it doesn’t even notice I’m there. I’m giving it everything I got and—” I heaved a sigh, “noth
ing. I can’t even crack the surface.”

  “Maybe he’s not into guys?” Bren asked.

  “Maybe,” I allowed, “Except every now and then last night, he’d give me the most intense look, and my brains would turn to hot pudding.

  “I saw him staring at you half the night,” Jill put in.

  “You think?” I asked, and she grinned and nodded. “So, anyway, I was asking Jill if there was something could be done about my hair. To, you know, make it look better.” I turned to her.

  “You’re using the same shampoo as Bren?” I nodded. I followed her into the bathroom and she plucked up a small jar. “Wash your hair like normal, only rinse it extra good. When you get out, towel it dry and work a daub of this—about the size of a dime—into your hair.”

  “That’s it?” I asked, looking at the dubious, pink jar.

  “Well…” she caught the ends of my hair and inspected them. “You could do with a trim. I’ll take care of that when you’re done with your shower, and don’t forget! No more than a dime-sized bit or you’ll look like you’ve had your head up a donkey’s ass. You know, maybe it would be better if I did it.”

  She took the jar back and pulled the door shut, making her expectations clear. When I came out of the bathroom, freshly shaved and showered, Jill had a kitchen chair set up with a towel and a pair of scissors to hand. I sat and she flicked a towel around my shoulders.

  “Not too much—”

  “Hush,” she cut me off. “You’ve asked for my help and now you have to take it.”

  And that was the end of the discussion. I sat there wrapped in a towel while she massaged sweet-smelling stuff from the little jar into my hair then cut it to please her. I felt pretty confidant about the outcome since this wasn’t the first time. She’d been cutting our hair since she and Bren started dating. She’d spent a few summers cutting hair in her aunt’s shop while growing up and had a good eye for what suited a person.

  Fifteen minutes later, I was examining what she’d done in the bathroom. She’d gotten rid of the dead ends, but she’d also put in some deeper layers. She showed me several ways I could brush it to look different.

  “Wow, we look fantastic,” said Brendan, eyeing me from every angle. Turning to Jill he said, “Now do me.”

  Half an hour later we were all dressed and ready to go to the picnic being thrown in Connor’s honor. On the way to the park, I gauged the responses of the strangers around me to the new look. It did seem the women on the subway were taking a little more notice, and two guys, clearly a couple, both eyed Bren and I as we walked past looking for a seat.

  The feverish passion I’d felt last night had been banked today until I started thinking about Oliver checking me out the way those two men had. It was mellower today though, like a low, electric humming in my bones. It might’ve been because I wasn’t in his presence.

  We got to the park and Jill began garnering compliments from the family on what she’d done to clean us up. We all converged on Connor when Uncle Gabe pulled up with him, crowding around for hugs and the requisite measuring of new growth. I wasn’t paying the whole thing much attention. I kept looking at Uncle Gabe, hoping I’d be able to get him alone. He eyed me warily in return. Once the adults had a chance to pinch cheeks and exclaim about acquired height, they let the cousins and Jill take Connor off for some hoops.

  I cut my uncle out of the crowd like a New Zealand sheepdog and herded him away to a grassy area next to the pond. We stood in the shade of a huge, old weeping willow.

  “You’re letting your gonads walk away with you, boy,” Gabe started in. “This isn’t something you make a snap decision about just because some guy’s got a cute butt, or whatever. Ask your Uncle Joel and he’ll tell you how tough it can be. People judge you.”

  “Why should I limit my options because some people have their heads up their collective asses about other people’s sexuality?” I shrugged. “What if the perfect person for me is a man and I never meet him because I’m scared strangers will scream nasty things out of car windows?”

  “Why make life harder for yourself than it has to be on the off chance that some day you might meet ‘Mister Right’ instead of ‘Miz Right’?” he asked, squeezing my shoulder.

  “So, you don’t think Uncle Joel is worth Uncle Dev’s trouble?” I inquired with a pretense of innocence, watching a group of ducks float our way.

  “What? No! I never said that! He’s the best thing that ever happened to Devlin, and if you say I said otherwise I’ll beat your ass.” He was really squeezing now.

  “Then you’d agree that Uncle Devlin’s decision to explore his interest in men—lo, those many years ago—was the smartest decision he ever made…?” I let it hang there so he could think about what I was saying.

  Over at the ball court I saw Jill go in for a near perfect lay up, and heard females cheer her on.

  “Well,” he sighed through his nose, “when you put it that way…” His fingers eased their pressure.

  “So, maybe it’s not such a bad decision after all.” I looked up from the hopeful ducks and made eye contact. “Besides, I’m not doing it on the off chance I might some day find ‘The One,’ I’m doing it because what if he’s ‘The One’, Unc?”

  “Okay, okay. That might be why you’re doing it. Now can you give me five bleeding minutes to come to grips with you being bi-sexual all of a sudden?”

  “No, this is a new millennium, and you’ve got to learn to adjust to sudden change on your feet, or you’re gonna get bowled over, so get over it. I need to know everything there is to know about Oliver.”

  “Christ on a cracker!” he exclaimed, kicking a rock, which flew into the water, making a plunking sound and startling the ducks. “It’s not like he introduced himself to me like a walking personals ad, ‘Hi, my name’s Oliver. I’m five-ten and my turn-ons include long walks on the beach, reading a good book by a roaring fire, drinking piña coladas and getting caught in the rain.’ I met him a week ago, and the first couple of days of that week, as you well know, I wasn’t at my most charming. He was sensitive enough to notice and didn’t make small talk. Next week, I’ll be in a better mood, so maybe he’ll start spilling his guts.”

  “Sensitive, eh?” I stroked my chin in a thoughtful manner. “Just tell me this; does he do guys?”

  He arched his dark auburn brows at me. “I can’t begin to tell you how wrong it is to have this conversation with your uncle.”

  “Come on…please?” I pleaded like a kid after candy.

  “How the fuck should I know what he wants to go to bed with?” he demanded loud enough to draw attention from the others. He glanced around and lowered his voice. “You think he confessed it to me while strapping an accident victim to the gurney? ‘This guy’s blood pressure is plummeting. Oh, and by the way, I’m a four on the Kinsey scale.’”

  “So…he might not be into guys.” I was worried now.

  Uncle Gabe issued a long-suffering sigh. “No, he might not be into guys, but…I think he is,” he begrudged.

  I perked up. “Really? How do you know?”

  “I don’t! The gaydar gene passed me by, so unless he’s Rip Taylor I can’t tell for sure. All I know is…he doesn’t look at women like I look at ‘em, and I think…” he paused, looking less comfortable by the second.

  “What?” I breathed, desperate to know. He mumbled something. “What?” I asked, my voice sharp this time.

  “I think I’ve caught him checking me out,” he blurted.

  With effort, I swallowed my laugh. “Well, Uncle Gabe,” I said in a grave tone, “you are a hunk.” He turned red, laughed and shoved me a little.

  “Oh, and can you do me a couple of favors?” I asked. “One: keep this on the down low, please? I’d like a little time to feel him out before I have to deal with all the questions flying from everyone else. Two: give me a warning call next time he’s gonna be coming in with you.”

  “On one condition.”

  “What’s that?”
<
br />   “I don’t wanna hear about you ‘feeling him out’…Okay? Are we seeing eye to eye? Just ‘cause I don’t have a problem with it, don’t mean a wanna hear about it. Cuimsigh?” Gabe finished in Irish.

  “Go deimhin, Unc,” I replied in kind with a snicker. “Whatever you say.”

  After the quick game on the court, the four of us had to leave. Jillian needed to pick up the playbills for Band Night at Irish Eyes. She’d be meeting Bren and Erin over at Mom and Dad’s place to practice in their garage and that’s where they were headed now. I went home to get my laptop. While I was there, I put my sheets and work clothes—victims of my, as of yet, unrequited passion for Oliver—into the washer, giving the load a little extra soap.

  It was time, with a little help from Google and my friends, to plan my next assault on Ollie-Ollie-oxidant-free.

  Chapter Three

  *Oliver*

  Dark and dirty sex would take care of my appetite for a while; locking my desires in a chastity belt of regret and self-loathing. I hated the ruthless prowl for sex partners. I wanted to be better than that; more than a laughable cliché of masculine self-absorption.

  But I wasn’t.

  “Sex with you is like fighting for a raw piece of meat, and I’m the meat,” Marcos, my second—and last—boyfriend, informed me the day he broke up with me. “It was hot at first, but it’s gotten old and you don’t seem capable of anything else. I want—I need someone who can make love as well as war now and then. Not to mention conversation. Take my advice and try expanding your reading beyond medical texts. It’ll improve your market value.”

  That’d been two years ago and though I’d like to think I’d improved, my dark and dirty monster remained, an anathema to any real relationship. Which is why I inflicted the beast on strangers and avoided real lovers. I knew these encounters, however common, were dangerous, and by no means psychologically healthy, but there were times when nothing else would do.