by Rick R. Reed
John stirs and his arm moves to his side. His eyelids flutter open. When he sees me, he smiles. “Hey,” he says.
“Good morning,” I whisper, even though I know there’s no need to.
“Sneaking out?”
“You were sleeping so well, I didn’t want to disturb you. I was going to leave you a note.”
He turns on his side. “And what would it say?”
It probably would have said something pedestrian like “Thanks for last night. Hope we can do it again soon.”
But I see an opportunity here, so I tell him, “It would have said that last night changed my life in ways you may never be aware of.” I sit on the bed near him unable to resist playing with the hair on his chest. “It would have said how our time together was a validation, a confirmation I am who I’m supposed to be. No small thing. I would have told you how much I already care about you.” I pause, wondering if I’m saying too much, if, like a too-soon “I love you,” I will frighten him away. “I was going to ask when we could do this again.”
He smiles, putting his hand over mine (the one I have on his chest). “That’s sweet,” he says.
My heart takes a plummet.
I move my hand away and stand up again. “Well, I should be going. I need to get home and shower and change before heading downtown.” I’m wondering if he’ll suggest I shower there. My mind goes into porn movie fantasy, literally steamy.
But he doesn’t. “You can grab a Pop-Tart on your way out if you’re hungry.”
“A Pop-Tart? Seriously? I thought you were gonna get up and fix me bacon and eggs, juice and coffee.”
He grins. “That doesn’t happen until at least the third date.”
I’m about to pounce on that, saying I’m relieved there will be a third date, but I know in my heart I’ve already sounded desperate enough as it is. “Are they brown-sugar cinnamon? They’re my favorite.”
“They are.”
I lean over to kiss his forehead, feeling like a dad instead of a lover. Ick. “I’ll call you or shoot you an e-mail later.”
“You do that.” He rolls over, away from me.
“Get some more sleep.”
“I intend to. You wore me out last night.”
I leave him, my smile at last restored. In the kitchen, I grab a packet of Pop-Tarts and head out to the L station on Western Avenue.
Chapter Fifteen
JOHN
As soon as the door clicks closed, I sit up. I wasn’t as sleepy as I pretended. In fact, my nerves were a jumble as I lay there trying to appear relaxed and drowsy.
I get up and creep to the bedroom window, even though there’s no need for stealth, and watch as Randy walks down my street. There’s something sweet in this view: his innocent amble along the relatively deserted (this early in the morning) avenue.
I think how if I glanced out the window and saw him out there as a stranger, I’d be turned on. I’d be squinching my eyes together to make this hot guy come into better focus.
Instead, I just watch as he proceeds up Lincoln Avenue, headed toward the L. “Where you goin’?” I ask.
I move away from the window and plop down on my bed.
Last night was incredible. What Randy lacked in technique, he’d more than made up for with enthusiasm. I wasn’t sure I could keep up, and I certainly couldn’t match his four orgasms. But I figured there was a ton of pent-up sexual energy there, yearning to break free.
It was wonderful.
And concerning. Concerning because I know this was his first time with a man. And while it was most certainly not mine, it was my first time taking someone’s virginity. The guys I’ve been with have all seemed to have been around the block a time or two. A time or two? Make that many, many times.
But that’s okay. It’s what we all do.
Except for Randy, who at age thirty-two is just beginning to discover who he is and what he wants.
And that worries me. Am I to be a learning experience? Training wheels until he learns how well he can ride on his own?
Or will he cling desperately to me, looking at me as the solution to all his troubles? His gay spirit guide and lover?
I’m ready to be someone’s partner, soul mate. I don’t know if I can handle or even want to be someone’s mentor.
So, where does this leave us?
I’m not sure. The only thing I do know for sure is that there are enough red flags around this relationship to make it look like some kind of Russian parade.
I get up from bed and go into the kitchen to put coffee on, something I already feel guilty I didn’t do when Randy was here.
But things are moving fast with us. And as much as I’m infatuated with him and as much as I want love with the right guy, something long-term, fulfilling, and real, I just don’t know if this is something I want to or even can jump into. I need to protect myself—that urge is fierce.
I’ve lived a life where my history is full up with me throwing caution to the wind when it came to relationships. I’ve gone for looks, status, security, machismo, and more—all of it leading to disappointment. I’ve never trodden carefully because I’ve always thought my heart wouldn’t lead me astray.
But it has, again and again.
Well, maybe it’s not my heart that’s led me astray.
Perhaps it was my error mistaking my heart for an organ much farther south on my anatomy. I know I tend to do that. And I regret it over and over.
While I wait for the Mr. Coffee to brew, I pull out a couple slices of bread and pop them into the toaster. Randy is not just someone I’m lusting after. I do know that much for sure, even though I’ve told myself the same thing about other guys a time or two before.
In retrospect, I can see those other times were wishful thinking, creating romance where there was none. With Randy, I know there’s something more solid. But he has so far to go before he even realizes who he is. How does he even know what he wants at this point?
I sit at my little kitchen table with my toast and coffee and eat and drink without really tasting. My mind is too busy.
So here it is, the old war between head and heart. In the past, my heart always wins this battle.
But where has it gotten me? Sitting here alone in a cramped kitchen, eating peanut butter and grape jelly on toast and drinking bad coffee.
Maybe I need to listen to my head for a change.
Maybe I need to buy better coffee.
My head’s telling me to turn tail and run—from Randy’s inexperience, from his naivete. But most of all, make a hasty getaway from a guy who’s still married and is jealous of his wife being with another man.
There’s a whole lot that can go wrong there. I’m just setting myself up for heartbreak, right?
Chicago is filled with unattached and available guys. Why go for one who still has to go through things like moving out, a messy divorce (and you know it’ll be messy), and maybe even a custody battle. Do you really want to expose yourself to a hurt spouse and maybe even the court system?
How can you be sure it would even work out in the end, anyway? He’s a baby gay. Brand new. Sure, he thinks he’s in love, but is he? Or has he hungered for so long for a relationship with a man, a real uniting of souls, that he’s falling for the first guy who shows an interest in him?
I ask this of myself because I remember a younger John, ten years ago maybe, venturing out with a fake ID, horniness, and hope into the treacherous world of gay bar culture. I fell in love with one-night stands so many times my buddy Vince used to tease me about it, saying I was a hopeless case, that I didn’t get hard-ons, I got heart-ons.
I know what it’s like to be fresh out of the closet. It’s scary and exciting and dangerous. All at the same time.
I push away the half-eaten toast. My coffee’s gone tepid.
See, what I fear is that if I give my heart to Randy, he’ll accept it gratefully. And things will be good between us.
For a while.
And then, once the dust has
settled, his divorce is final, and he’s no longer under the same roof with a wife, he’ll look at me one day and think, “My God, I never even gave myself the chance to experience playing the field. I never got to sow some wild oats. Hell, there’s a whole buffet out there, and I’m the poor sucker who only picked up one thing to put on my plate.”
I think it’s likely he’ll think like that. It’s reasonable. It has precedent. It’s probably gonna happen.
If I pursue this man. If I stay a course with him.
He’ll come to resent me.
And I will be right back where I started. Alone.
Why not throw my hopes and desires in with someone who’s truly emotionally available and ready for a relationship? Why not give my heart to someone who’s ready to settle down—and in a position to do so without clutter, baggage, wife, and kids?
Is it that hard?
I chuckle and answer myself, “Yes, it’s that hard.” Lord knows I’ve tried.
I stand up and brush the crumbs off my lap.
I go into the living room and throw myself on the couch. I pick up the phone to call Vince. He’s even more of a mess than I am, but he’s objective. He’ll have good advice in spite of his own disastrous dating history.
We talk for a long time. I pour out my feelings, my growing fear that I’m falling for Randy, despite all the warning signs.
And, near the end of our talk, good old Vince says the words I know he’ll say, the words I’m both dreading and longing to hear.
“Dump him.”
Chapter Sixteen
RANDY
Walking north toward home on Ashland Avenue, I finally get what people mean when they use the phrase, “a spring in his step,” because I have one in mine. I am confining myself to the spring only, although I feel like doing a little dance or maybe even singing a few bars of “Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life.” If I let myself, I’d skip. Jump for joy.
It’s a little after six in the evening. I had a busy day at work, which made it fly by. And now, I’m basking in the happiness that’s come from being with a man, really being with one in all the good ways—physically, emotionally, intellectually—that count. I’ve at last experienced man-to-man intimacy, and it’s making my heart sing.
I know I’m grinning like an idiot, and if anyone passes me on the street, they’ll assume I’m just one of the crazies wandering around Rogers Park.
And maybe I am.
Crazy in love.
Crazy with hope that my future, something I once thought as bleak and colorless, may open up to deliver joy, contentedness, and peace.
Sometimes, being crazy is the sanest thing a guy can do.
I can still picture John in that bed. Lustful. Sleepy. Sleeping. And I can’t wait to do it again, to feel his strong arms around me. To savor the sweet of his lips, his tongue. To feel him inside me, me inside him.
It’s all so good. So right. So natural.
I use my key to open the door to the vestibule of my building. Inside, I open up our mailbox to find it empty. Violet’s already been here, obviously.
As I head up the stairs to our apartment, I think how my anguish over discovering Violet has found another man is diminishing. While it still pains me, my thoughts are beginning to come around to the thought that her finding someone else is okay because that discovery is actually the key to my freedom. Rather than being jealous, I should be happy for her.
Maybe now, we can reasonably talk about it. I can tell her that I know.
And it’s okay.
We’ve both met a man.
Now, maybe we can begin working on being parents—and friends.
I open the front door to our apartment.
I immediately notice there’s something different. But it’s more instinctive. It hits me within a few seconds of closing the door behind me.
I pause, still, maybe a little frightened. I expected the radio to be on, tuned to Violet’s favorite station, WXRT, playing some alternative rock softly from the kitchen. I thought maybe there’d be smells—onion and garlic in butter on the stove, meat grilling.
But the place is pristine. Dust motes float in the dying rays of sunlight filtering in through our windows.
The silence is blown away by the rumble of an L train outside. I watch its passage as a silhouette behind the mini blinds at the dining room window.
“Vi?” I call out, even though I know there’s no one here.
I make a tour of the apartment, hoping that she and Henry are playing a joke and I will find them hiding, say, beneath the mound of dirty clothes on our walk-in closet floor, a pile that never seems to diminish.
Until today…
The pile of clothes is gone. So are all of Violet’s clothes, most of which hung on the rack opposite mine.
Heart pounding, I call out for her again and then: “Henry?”
My mind tries to calm, telling me that the two of them have taken a walk over to the little store on the corner of Jarvis and Ashland. Their prices are high, but they’re super convenient when you need a jug of milk or a loaf of bread.
I sit on the bed, feeling dizzy, my heart hammering in my chest. I have trouble catching my breath. Don’t be stupid. They’re not at the corner store. Her clothes are gone.
I sit for a long time, alone and terrified of the truth that’s looking me in the eye—fearless and without one ounce of sympathy. She wouldn’t just walk out on me. That’s not my Violet. We’d at least talk first, right?
My stomach churns. I fear my lunch is about to come up.
I force myself, after a time, to stand on weak knees, and make my way over to Violet’s dresser. I open drawer after drawer, feeling sicker and more abandoned as I reveal each empty one.
Panting, I move quickly to Henry’s room and find it, too, has been emptied out. There are still toys in the toy box, but it’s half empty. There are still clothes in the closet and a few of the drawers, but curiously, they all look like ones he’s outgrown.
His favorite stuffed animal, a black-and-red chimpanzee he calls Charlie, is nowhere in sight. The yellow-and-white afghan my grandmother made for him when he was born, and which he cannot sleep without to this day, is also missing in action.
Spine rigid, I stand at the window, looking out on the building’s backyard, clutching a stuffed dragon in my hand so tight my knuckles whiten. But it’s all I have to cling to right now, my life preserver in a world that’s been turned upside down.
Throat and mouth dry, too scared to cry, I move around the apartment again, thinking there will be a note that will explain everything.
When I’m just about to give up, I find it—a folded-over piece of spiral notebook paper with my name scrawled on the outside in Violet’s handwriting. She’s left it taped to the freezer door.
I remove it and set it down on the little butcher’s block we purchased, when we moved in, from the Ace Hardware store across from the Century Mall. I go into the pantry and see that, in her mercy, she left behind the bottle of Jack Daniels. I grab it and head into the bedroom with the bottle in one hand, her note in the other.
I take a big swig from the bottle before I open the folded-in-half paper.
At first my hand’s shaking so badly, I can’t focus on Violet’s mix of cursive and lettering. I take another long swallow of the whiskey, blow out the liquor-heated breath, and finally calm down enough to begin reading.
Dear Randy,
You know how the song goes? The one about being cruel to be kind? That’s what I’m doing now.
You’ve noticed we’re gone. And it breaks my heart to imagine you alone there now, reading this, shocked and feeling devastated.
I know. It makes my heart hurt.
But we need to stop this.
Our marriage is a sham.
I said our marriage, not our love. Not our friendship. Not our being parents to Henry. Those things are sound, even though they need some working out in light of this new normal.
I’ve spoken to my family. They want to h
elp me, and honestly, Randy, I need their support right now. I hope you understand. Your revelation last winter knocked the supports out from under me. For too long, I didn’t know what to do because I was so busy thinking how I could help you.
I forgot myself.
Now that you’re beginning to move slowly but surely into a world that needs to exclude Henry and me, I’m beginning to realize I have to take care of myself first. I can’t be of any help to you, and certainly not to Henry, unless I do that.
My family can help me out now—emotionally, financially. They can give Henry and me a home, something I’ve been feeling more and more I’ve lost.
I don’t want to whine. I don’t want to shame you. You are who you are.
We’ll work things out.
But for now, I need loving arms around me—ones I know will be here for me at all times, not just sometimes.
I love you, dear man. I always will.
XXOO,
Violet
I clutch the letter in my hand, wishing it were a living thing. My first impulse would be to strangle it, if it were, to blot out its existence. But after I’ve had time to think, I become compassionate. I know Violet needs her space, her time, and the support of someone other than me—the one who is reluctantly causing her pain.
It makes sense.
But even though I can begin to have some understanding for what she’s done, I’m still confused, hurt, and full of questions. That’s the thing—this letter raises more questions than it answers.
First of all, what about Henry? What’s he been told about why he’s been yanked from the only home he’s known?
Does her being with her parents up in Evanston mean that I will, or won’t, be able to see my son when I want to?
I’d like to believe that provisions will be made for me to see my son. Violet would never be so heartless. Her family, though, I’m not so sure about. The thought that they may try to take him away from me or poison his mind against me is a legitimate fear. The fact that this decision is out of my control chills me to the core and makes me sick with anxiety.
Where do I stand now with Violet? Are divorce proceedings not far behind? And if they are, will they be contentious or amicable? If it was just Violet and me, I’m certain we could effect a loving and considerate break. But with her conservative Catholic family involved? I have good reason to fear. Her parents are not only racist, homophobic, and religiously zealous, they’re also powerful, wealthy people with connections.