2016 Top Ten Gay Romance
Page 28
My freshman year in college, the bus I was riding home broke down, and I spent Christmas at a gas station in Nebraska fighting with a three-hundred-pound twelve-year-old over the last salted nut bar in the vending machine. My junior year in college, I lost control of my car on an ice patch two blocks from my parents’ house and spent Christmas Eve in the Emergency Room trying to push my wayward ulna back inside my arm. When I was twenty-two, the only present my boyfriend gave me was gonorrhea, and I cried every time I had to pee. When I was twenty-seven, I was mugged by a guy in a Santa suit with a baseball bat painted like a candy cane, and the next year my cousin showed up at my grandma’s house for Christmas holding hands with the exact same dude, who followed me into the bathroom and begged me to let him blow me. Year after that I was like, Forget this, and I went to Dubai, where I figured they wouldn’t even celebrate Christmas. My hotel boasted “The Largest Christmas Tree in the World.” Twelve stories tall and draped in “over a million lights!” And on the night of the twenty-third it caught fire and burned the place down.
I know, I know: the Drama! I’m not trying to act like I have nothing to live for, or like that Elvis song Blue Christmas ruined my life. My life is fine. I don’t have cancer, I don’t get migraines; at thirty-six I still have my hair, hardly any of it’s gray, and I weigh what I weighed when I was playing soccer in college. I like my job okay, I travel for fun, I love my dog. I have a cute house in a cute neighborhood close enough to walk to this joint for coffee. My life’s great. Christmas just hates me.
I thought I had outsmarted it this year, though. No boyfriend means no boyfriend drama means I’m free and clear when I waltz into Bean City and the cute little mop-top asks me how I’m doing. “Fine, thank you, and you?” No whining, no crying, no inappropriate nose-blowing. He asks me out for a drink, I don’t need to invent excuses not to go. It’s like noon. God, what a prude I must have sounded like. Like I’ve never put Kahlua in my morning coffee? No wonder he was like, You know where to find me, instead of giving me his number. He probably knew he was leaving. I guess it doesn’t do me any good to live close enough to walk here if I’m never gonna do it. Three or four months he’s been gone? I’m going home.
I’m not crying—Jesus, not again. I’m just a little…emotional, I tell myself. And it’s my own dang fault. It’s not like we had plans to meet here. It’s not like he’s stood me up. It feels like he’s stood me up, but that’s just because I’ve been obsessing over this morning since like September. Daydreaming about his bouncy hair, his bouncy little butt in those tan jeans, instead of walking up here—it’s eight blocks!—and doing something about it, and now he’s off building a school, according to some stoner in a skirt, and the only thing more improbable than that is a thirty-six-year-old quote-unquote adult man pinning all of his hopes for the first un-shitty Christmas in twenty years on the total stranger he once blew his nose all over.
I’m not crying. It’s possible, though, that I may be expressing some frustration via my eyes when I jerk open the door and plow into the person coming through it. I mumble “Sorry” or something like it—probably—and hunker into pouting position—hands jammed in my jacket pockets, chin tucked towards my belly button—for the slow, self-pitying walk home.
“Oh no, not again,” he says. Before I turn around, when all I see is his hand on my elbow, I know it’s him. Frenchy Le-Cute-Butt. Ben.
Sure enough. His hair is shorter, still good and wavy on top, and he’s wearing heavy-framed glasses, but it’s him all right. The specs throw me for a second, but the big optimist’s grin twitching beneath the cracks in the slapdash veneer of concern is a dead giveaway.
“Shannon, right?” he says. “The Curse of the Christmas Boyfriend?”
“As the Scooby-Doo episode about my life is called.” I smile, madly wiping at my cheeks. God he must think I’m a mess.
“You okay? Don’t tell me it happened again? Let me guess: he turned out to be two elves, one on top of the other in an overcoat, and they left you because they had to get back to Santa’s workshop?”
“You saw the thing they did about it on the news?”
“Dude, you had to suspect…”
“They were very convincing.”
“You poor bastard. Buy you a cup of coffee?”
Ben’s Bean City homecoming is a boisterous and exultant one, with high-fives, butt-slaps, and headlocks all around. “C’mon, Freckles, bring it in…” The barista, whose name turns out to be Seth, commands me to join in, which nets me a noogie, a kiss on the nose, and another free cup of coffee.
“He’s happy to see you,” I pointlessly observe. “How long have you been gone?”
Ben laughs. “I left in August. But I was here the other day. I see Seth like twice a week.”
“He’s a big fan.”
Ben shrugs. Yeah, well…
“So’d you have a good Christmas?” I venture. “Have you been up all night?”
“Kinda. I conked for a little bit after dinner. You know, since I didn’t have to be here. But then I got up and realized I did have to be here, so…here I am.”
“How come?”
He lifts his cup of coffee in answer.
“Right,” I say, tapping the rim of my own. Coffee. That’s the whole reason I’m here, too.
“But I’m glad I didn’t miss this year’s episode,” he teases me. “Seriously, dude, you okay?”
I nod. “I’m fine.”
“You wanna talk about it?”
“Actually, there’s no drama this year. Believe that or not.”
He lifts a skeptical eyebrow, but appears to decide not to say, But I saw you crying…And what am I gonna say, I was crying because you weren’t here?
Moving right along…“So, what are you doing now? Seth said something about school?”
“Third grade,” he says, beaming.
“They’re making you repeat the third grade?”
“That’s exactly what happened. And I couldn’t handle the phonics workload and a job, so I had to quit here. I’m tellin’ you what, though, dude—those desks are small. I barely fit in mine, and I’m a little guy. So most days I sit at the teacher’s desk and boss the other kids around.”
“So you’re a teacher?”
“For all those kids know. I’m getting away with it, too, so far, although I think Austin C. might suspect something’s up…”
“He probably thinks you’re two elves in an overcoat.”
“It’s more common than you think. Well, look who I’m telling.”
He’s got a cute little butt, he makes me laugh, and now there are these sexy glasses involved…I’m feeling slightly less ridiculous about the histrionic weeping from earlier. Not seeing this guy this morning would have ranked as a Christmas disaster for the books.
A spur-of-the-moment lunch date on Christmas Day with the guy who once made you coffee and thinks you’re kind of an emotional wreck still feels kind of absurd to me, but I don’t have to be at my Aunt Sheila’s house until dinnertime, and he insists some place is going to be open.
“This is a place, isn’t it?” He looks around the otherwise deserted coffee house.
“Well, yeah. But there’s nobody here.”
“So? We’ll be wherever we go. What are you, trying to keep your options open? You wanna go someplace crowded in case there’s some dude there who can still dump you before Christmas is over?”
“Some habits are hard to break.”
“Yeah, and ‘eating lunch’ is one of them. Come on.”
We have to search high and low. For about two seconds. After a doleful and dramatic goodbye from Seth, who Ben assures me he’ll see again before the week is out, we’ve walked fifty feet and are still talking logistics—do we walk? Do we drive? One car or two? Where are we going, anyway?—when loops of LED lights begin to dance around the word “Open” in the window of the tiny Thai place on the alley.
“It’s a sign,” I say.
“Santa wants us to have Thai foo
d.”
“We better do what he says.”
There’s a great clatter of bells when he pulls open the door. He stands aside to let me enter, then follows me into what appears to be someone’s walk-in closet furnished with four two-tops, a cash register, and a photo of the king and queen of Thailand, probably from the sixties, slipping out of its gold frame. A stooped, elderly man in a purple Nehru-style jacket and matching trousers appears from behind a curtain holding two menus and tells us, “Sit by the window,” so we do.
“You’ve never been here before,” he announces, setting the menus between us on the table.
“First time,” Ben confirms.
“The Panang curry is very good today. Also you want the shrimp. Two Singha beers to start.” None of these are suggestions or questions, but delivered more as The Plan, so we shrug.
“Sounds good.”
The man picks the menus up un-glanced-at and shuffles off behind the curtain whence he came.
“I never even knew this place was here,” Ben says. “I worked two doors down for like six years.”
“I grew up in this neighborhood, like five blocks from here. It’s been here as long as I can remember. I just never knew anybody came in here.” But it’s bright and it’s clean and really all I wanted was a chance to not have to say goodbye to Ben, so I’m happy as a clam.
After a considerable spell, the man in the purple getup emerges from behind the curtain carrying a large wooden tray, which he sets on the table behind Ben’s chair. From it he plucks a small ceramic bud vase, which he plunks on the table betwixt us, leaving the pink plastic orchid to provide its own fanfare. He sets a beer before me, a beer before Ben, and a plate of crispy-fried dough balls between us. “Christmas wontons,” he says, setting two small dishes of dipping sauce—one red, one green—at Ben’s elbow with the barest flash of a wry grin before toddling back off to his curtain.
If there is anybody else in the restaurant, no indication is given. By the time the clattering of pans and the sizzle of things being tossed around on hot metal begin to waft from behind the curtain, we haven’t seen the man in half an hour, and ours are the only two voices, which makes me want to whisper.
“Is he back there by himself?” I ask Ben.
He shrugs. “It kind of seems like it.”
“I guess that’s one way to keep your overhead down.”
But once we’ve been served the curry and a crackling-hot plate of garlic-drenched shrimp, Ben gushes, eyes wide with the delight of discovery. “But I mean, if this is how you cook, why would you bother hiring someone else?”
“No kidding,” I say, plopping another pile of rice onto my plate to soak up more of the spicy curry. Between heaping, hot bites we grin at each other, and when we’re finished eating, nothing more than a wayward cilantro leaf remains. “He could put your plate back on the shelf,” I tease Ben.
He nods. “Right? He probably does that on purpose. Every plate somebody licks clean is one less dish to wash.”
“You wanna lick mine?”
“What, that one drop of sauce? You did all right yourself.”
It’s true. I giggle. He smiles. The check arrives, and Ben reaches for it, but I beat him to it.
“I got it.”
“But it was my idea,” he says.
“Your idea? What, you invented lunch?”
“This lunch was my idea.”
“And it was a good one. So thanks.”
“Fine,” he says. “But I got the next one.”
Our eyes meet and I smile. “Did you just ask me for a second date?”
He shrugs. “It’s a little early yet to ask for the third.”
I laugh.
He asks me for my phone number, then dials it so I’ll have his. When we’re out on the sidewalk, he says he’ll call me in a couple days. “I hope you have a good rest of your Christmas,” he says.
“So far it’s pretty much the best Christmas ever,” I say.
He smiles. I’ve already turned to go when he says, “You know I have a coffee maker, right?”
I stop and turn back to him. “What?”
“At home?” he says. “I have a few, actually. A French press, one of those good stovetop espresso makers. A grind-and-brew, has a little timer on it.”
“Okay.”
“I’m saying, I didn’t come to Bean City this morning ‘cause I needed coffee.”
I grin. I think I blush. I look at my feet, then at him. “Hey, I’m just glad you came.”
“Good.” He kisses me. Nothing big, nothing cinematic. He just leans in, kisses me on the mouth, says “Merry Christmas, Shannon,” and walks away. I walk away too, of course. As soon as I float back down to Earth, which takes a second.
* * * *
The doorbell’s ringing. My phone’s ringing. It’s not quite seven in the morning, so I answer the phone first because I don’t have to get out of bed to do it.
It’s Ben. “Is your doorbell broken?” he wants to know.
“Doesn’t seem to be,” I say. “‘Cause somebody’s out there ringin’ it to beat the band and it’s still the middle of the night.”
“You need to get that birthday butt out of bed and let that poor bastard into your house. He’s freezing and he wants pancakes.”
I laugh. “Then he’s ringing the wrong doorbell. There’s no pancakes here that I know about.”
“Come on, let me in.”
“I’m pretty sure my birthday doesn’t start until like ten.”
“There’s not gonna be a birthday if we don’t get a move on.”
“Why, what are we doing?”
“It’s a surprise.” He starts up on the doorbell again. “Let. Me. In!”
“But I’m still in my birthday suit.”
“Why do you think I want in so bad? Once you put pants on, I’m over it.”
I laugh. We’ve been together for almost four months—ever since Christmas basically—and any comment from him with even the mildest sexual connotation lights that little fire down deep in my belly; I’m half hard when I get up to go open the door. I stay behind it as I pull it open—my neighbors don’t need to know all that—and he rides a current of cold air into my living room. That’s April in Colorado for you: everybody’s tulips came up last week, you can still see them here and there, poking through the six inches of snow.
“Happy Birthday!” he cries. He pulls me into a bear hug, and I wriggle and squirm to get out of it—he wasn’t kidding, he’s freezing. Encircling me at the elbows with sleeves like Popsicles, he pulls me against the icy nylon of his jacket, shaking snow out of his hair onto my bare shoulders and into my face. He grabs my butt cheeks with frigid wet hands and I squeal.
“Quit it!”
“I won’t. You left me standing out there like a penguin, and I want revenge.” The ice-cold finger he tickles my hole with actually feels kinda nice, and my dick bounces its approval. He laughs. “See, you love it.”
“I’ll tell you what I don’t love…”
“Oh boo hoo, it’s seven o’clock. What, are you gonna get too much birthday?” He turns me towards the bedroom and smacks my ass one more time. “Now go throw some shit in a suitcase, son, we got plans.”
“Suitcase plans?”
“Calm yourself, it’s not Paris. But you need a swimsuit and tomorrow’s undies. Train’s at eight-thirty, and, as I may have mentioned, I want pancakes.”
I’ve lived in Denver all my life. Naturally I knew we had a train station—its freshened façade is the city’s official mascot for urban renewal. I just didn’t know trains still went to it. And yet at five after nine, as we’re sipping birthday mimosas at one of Union Station’s trendy new bars, here comes Amtrak’s California Zephyr chugging down the track.
“California?” I remark. “Should I have watered my plants?”
“We’re not going quite that far,” Ben assures me. “But on the way to California, this train goes through the mountains, wherein your surprise awaits.”
“And how does the bed fold out?” Ben asks.
“Aren’t you only going to Glenwood Springs?” the conductor says, letting the cat, if not the answer to Ben’s question, out of the bag.
“We’ll figure it out,” Ben says. The conductor trundles away.
“Glenwood?” I clap my hands together with glee.
“Surprise.”
“Oh, but that is a surprise! I love Glenwood.” A mountain town tucked into the Western Slope once frequented by Teddy Roosevelt and his crowd, Glenwood Springs has been famous for a hundred and thirty years for its gigantic mineral pool and surrounding hot springs. A ritzy celebrity spa in the 1890s, now it’s more of an RVer’s roadside attraction, but it has a water slide and a hot tub the size of a basketball court, so while it’s unlikely to pop up on TMZ, it’s as popular with “just folks,” as my dad calls us, as it ever was with the rich and famous. “Oh, baby, thank you!” I give him a hug and big kiss, then slide him a sideways look. “But how long could that possibly take? What do we need a bed for?”
He doesn’t say “duh,” but in the raised eyebrow, it’s implied.
Now, I’m as happy to bottom as the next guy, and, as I discovered on New Year’s Eve, Ben is easy to take and very easy to enjoy. He fucks me frequently, and I’m a fan. But it is my birthday, so I get to pick, and once we figure out how to get the chairs folded and tucked right, I ride his two little grapefruits into the mountains next to that picture window like I’m starring in a silent film about the Pony Express. The second time I come in him I’m so excited about it I fall off and land on the floor with a thud.