by Dale Chase
“Nothing can make it worse and you’re…you’re so good, so steady. I don’t think I can get through the day without you.”
He conceded and I think that was the moment when I fell in love with him. He set aside reason and everything practical, everything we both knew was right, in the interest of consoling a man who’d lost everything. He knew that intimacy, no matter the context, was a salve, if not a cure. He took me to bed, and I spent most of an hour with him inside me.
“You need to get moving,” he said as I lay in his arms afterward.
“Do you want me to go?” I asked.
“Of course not, but isn’t there a wedding at two? It’s now…” He looked over at the clock. “Eleven thirty. You need to get your car, go to your motel, shower, change, and drive to Palos Verdes. You’re going to be pressed for time.”
My hand lay on his chest, petting his fur. I had found a calm space and didn’t want to leave it, not even for my sister. “I can dress here,” I said. “Do the car, the motel, all that stuff later on if you’ll drive me to the wedding. Hey, you could come with me.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said.
When I fell silent, he explained. “We just met, you’ve got a situation, and then there’s your family.”
“But that’s okay,” I said. “I’d love to show up with you.”
“I’d like to think this isn’t about that.”
Oh, God, I thought, I’ve blown it. Panic seized me. “Of course it’s not.” I raised myself up on my elbows and looked down at him. “Oh, Tom, God, no, I’m so sorry I said that, please forgive me. I’m just a mess and you know why, but it truly isn’t about that. Forget I said it.”
“Okay, okay, calm down, calm down.”
“I’m so fucked up,” I offered.
He didn’t deny this, which gave me a pang, but his silent criticism was well deserved after my outburst. “Okay, you’re right,” I said. “I should do the wedding on my own, face up to things, to my life. Oh, God, my life.” I rolled away from him.
“You go to the wedding,” Tom said as he pressed his body to my back. “You’ll do fine, you’ll see your sister on the happiest day of her life, and it will get you away from your pain for a while.”
“Then can I come back here?”
“I don’t think so,” he said.
I couldn’t speak. I was losing all over again. Tom explained himself as he held me. “You’re coming off the worst pain in your life and I’m very lucky to have met you, but if we’re at the beginning of something, I don’t want it built on that. Whatever we have should stand on its own.”
I sat up. “Are we at the beginning of something?”
“Feels that way.”
I laughed and my laughter morphed into a teary mess. “Me, too,” I said, reaching over to stroke that gorgeous fur.
“Then it will withstand a little absence. You need to get your footing. You’ve undoubtedly got a life up in San Francisco, even without what’s-his-name. You need to go back to it, take some time. I’ll be here.”
“How long?”
Now he laughed. “Eager little fucker, aren’t you.”
“How long?”
“Three months. No contact.”
“Then what? You’ll just call?”
“No, you’ll call. If you still find yourself wanting to know me after you’ve gotten your perspective back, you get in touch. I’ll be here.”
“I hate this.”
“Of course you do. You’re blasted right now, a member of the walking wounded. You’re going to hate everything.”
“But last night,” I said. “You were so…and the sex, it was fabulous, and just everything about this morning.”
“Can’t argue with any of that, but let’s find out what it’s like when you’ve healed. I’m thinking it will really be something.”
* * * *
We drove to Hertz in silence. It felt like Raymond all over again, but the best part—the very best part and one of the multitude of reasons why to this day I love Tom so dearly—was that Tom understood this. “I’m not leaving you by staying,” he said.
“Oh, God,” I gasped, tears stinging my eyes.
He handed me a handkerchief as we turned into the lot. “Want to come in with me?” I asked, sniffling, knowing he wouldn’t.
“No, you’re on your own now. You’ll do fine. And in three months, you’ll be even better.”
“And how about you? How do I know you won’t find someone else in the meantime?”
He shook his head in a way that said far more than words, then handed me his card and kissed me. “Go get your car. And have a good wedding.”
“This is so hard,” I said, not wanting to get out.
“I know, but it will make you a better man.”
“That’s a lousy reason.”
He laughed. “Go get your car.”
I wanted to tell him I loved him, that he was my future, but because I did love him I kept quiet, knowing the declaration would be out of place. Those words wouldn’t be right for another three months. I slid out of the car, shut the door, and looked back. He didn’t take his eyes off me until I passed through the door of the rental office, and that meant the world.
* * * *
Reality was loud and crude, a line at the counter where a single clerk tended to business. The customer presently enjoying attention was in a noisy snit about his car, bottling up everything until somebody cried out for a second clerk. One must have appeared because things quieted and we began to move. I had my head down, afraid to look out the window and see Tom gone.
Motel, shower, change, wedding, I said to myself over and over. Concentrate. Life. Live it. Three months, then he’ll be picking me up at the airport and I won’t be in this damned line.
Driving a little Kia, I knew the way to the motel, having grown up in the area. But it all looked different now, new in some way, everything changed even as I made familiar turns. Once cleaned up, I headed for Palos Verdes and a church chosen by the groom’s family as we certainly weren’t Palos Verdes people. Leslie, my sister, and I had grown up in Westchester, a fine suburb gradually being gobbled up by the ever expanding Los Angeles International Airport. Palos Verdes, on the other hand, was a very upscale community perched on a high bluff miles down the coast. Leslie had done well to snag Bert, actually Bertram Rudyear Collins III who I’d meant once and liked. He’d somehow escaped the family trappings to become a pediatrician at a county hospital, but the wedding had drawn him back up the hill.
It all became a blur: ceremony, handshakes, kisses, small talk at a vast reception where I nursed a glass of champagne until it was flat. My parents, who didn’t approve of my “lifestyle” were cordial but distant, as were my two elderly aunts. I was seated at a table with complete strangers where I suffered the not married question too many times, a couple girls’ eyes brightening at the prospect. I danced with them and once with Leslie, who mercifully didn’t ask about Raymond. His absence was comment enough and when the dance ended I thanked her, wished her a great life, and fled. I didn’t cry until I was back down in the flatlands.
Trying not to think of Tom was impossible.. With any other man, I’d already have called to share sexy talk and make plans for the next date. What was he doing? Would he really wait for me? Would he see other men during the separation? Maybe that’s why he dictated three months. He had someone he had to ease out of the picture, but not too soon. He wanted to enjoy the guy to the fullest before pulling the plug, but no, he wouldn’t do that, not Tom. It wasn’t like him. Or was it? How well did I even know him?
By the time I reached my motel, I was a whole new kind of wreck, a self-imposed one in which I cast Tom into every awful scenario my dented ego could imagine. I took another shower to straighten myself out, wishing my flight home was imminent rather than the next morning, but I made no move to change it. Contacting the airline seemed beyond my capacity. Only as I lay naked on my bed some time later did I realize I was o
ne day into a three-month sentence and doing quite badly. I didn’t even know what Tom had been doing in San Francisco. Did he have family there? Maybe he was from the area. This amused me for about three seconds.
Forcing myself up, I dressed and sought a restaurant where I had a fine fish dinner before retreating to the bar. My flight the next morning wasn’t until ten, so I could enjoy a few drinks. I ordered a tequila and tonic and felt it start to settle me until someone slid onto the stool beside me.
“That looks good,” he said.
“It is,” I replied as I turned to find Tom’s double, only not quite. Sandy hair instead of blond, but the same ease and he was big like Tom, broad, and soft spoken. He ordered a tequila and tonic, then asked if I lived in the area.
“Nope. In town for my sister’s wedding which was this afternoon. I fly back to San Francisco tomorrow morning.
This was where the next line should have been then we have all night, but he just asked how it had been.
“What?”
“The wedding.”
“Oh, Okay I guess, Palos Verdes, people I didn’t know except for the family who don’t approve of me. One glass of champagne.” Why I added this I didn’t know until the guy introduced himself. “I’m Jeff Lyster.”
“Alex Toomey,” I said shaking his hand. He held it a second too long which made me see Tom doing the same thing with his Jeff, or no, his Alex. I gulped down the rest of my drink and ordered another. Next thing I knew it was morning, I was in a stranger’s bed, and somebody was sucking my cock. How good it felt, but how awful everything else: the pounding headache, the confusion. Who was this guy?
Never underestimate the power of the dick, I thought as I felt the rise begin. Never mind the rest of the body might expire, I was going to get off and I raised my head to see the mouth on me, sucking come so expertly I didn’t care who he was. But then it was over and I was gently rolled onto my stomach and mounted, also expertly. I no longer cared about my headache or much else. I gave myself to the intimacy, thinking of Tom, so familiar, so wonderful. Then, as his thrusting grew frantic I heard a “shit yeah” as he came. It wasn’t Tom at all.
Scarcely a minute later the guy got up—Jeff, it came to me. Yes Jeff—calling behind him as he headed to the bathroom, “Don’t you have an early flight?”
Did I? I was still sorting out who was who when I sat up. I heard Jeff pissing, then showering.
The headache clouded things. Airport. Wedding. No, I’d done that. Go home, yes. Flight. I looked at the bedside clock. Eight-fifteen. I prodded my memory. Yes, a ten o’clock flight.
I wanted to shower but didn’t. People on the plane would be disgusted with my smelling of sex and sweat, but I didn’t care. Then Jeff came out in a towel, looking quite appealing.
“Where are my keys?” I asked once I’d dressed.
Jeff took them off the dresser. “You were in no shape to drive last night. Your car’s back at Tito’s.”
“Can you drive me there?”
“Soon as I have some coffee.”
Brewing took mere minutes, but seemed an eternity and the coffee was awful, or was that me? There was little conversation and when Jeff finally dropped me at my car in the deserted parking lot at Tito’s, he kissed my cheek and said, “Thanks for a great night, Axel.”
I started to correct him, then stopped. “You bet,” I said and away drove the near stranger.
* * * *
I drank only a Coke on the flight home, took the train to the city, and Uber to my Taylor Street apartment where I found myself more than alone. Raymond had removed not only himself, he’d taken the coffee maker, the toaster oven, half the dishes, cups, silverware, bedding, and towels. He’d also taken a painting we bought together, a colorful abstract that had spoken to us both. The empty wall looked too big now. I persisted, however, as a tiny thread of anger began to work its way around the hurt, as if to cut off it’s oxygen supply. Raymond had left the bed unmade and I ripped off the sheets, stuffing them into a waste basket after throwing the covers into a corner. I opened every window in the apartment, letting in San Francisco’s cool summer breeze. The fog wasn’t in the city quite yet, but I could tell it hovered along the coast and would soon creep in to blanket us and shut out the sun, which was fine with me. I didn’t think of Tom until I went to bed.
It had been one day since we parted, one day and I’d already had sex with somebody. Jed or John or Jerry. Certainly not Jeff. I almost liked him getting my name wrong.
When it occurred to me I had Tom’s card, I got up to retrieve it from my wallet because, besides memories, it was all I had of him.
Tom Genser
Landscape Architect
14 Sonoma Street #16
Santa Monica, CA 90401
And a phone number. One I was to use in three months. “Hello, this is Alex. It’s been three months. Let’s fuck.” I subsequently entertained myself with an assortment of opening lines that went from sexy to lewd to a fine solo session that, after a major come, put me to sleep.
* * * *
The second day of the three-month sentence—it felt that way, incarcerated minus the cage—was easier because it had structure: day job inside a cubicle in the claims department of a major disability insurance carrier. Hours spent at a computer or on the phone, lunch with Tony, who occupied the next cubicle and was my best friend. “Want to talk about it?” he’d asked that morning when I arrived at the office.
“So you’ve heard,” I replied. “It’s over, he moved out while I was gone. The wedding was nice and no, I don’t want to talk about it.”
Work felt good for a change, forms and data entry comfortably routine. At lunch we talked about seeing a movie. “Urban Legend,” Tony suggested.
“Maybe on the weekend.”
I stayed late that Monday, taking time to finish up a claim. Disability work was often heartbreaking so I gained some perspective on life, but once home it evaporated. I ate some frozen thing cooked in the microwave, trying to recall if Tom had a microwave. That night I again conjured him for a solo session.
* * * *
On Friday, Tony and I went to the movie, after which we got a burger where we ran into friends Jim and Ethan, who slipped into our booth with us. I was then consoled at length, Ethan asking if I knew about Raymond’s new man.
“No, he never said.”
“It’s Jean-Louis something, chef at Smoak, that new hot spot. Raymond quit his job when he moved into Jean-Louis’ Nob Hill apartment.”
Ethan rattled on until Jim apparently kicked him under the table because there came a sudden “ow” before quiet descended. I said not a word. Once home, I didn’t conjure Tom to get off. Instead I decided to hate him for what he was doing to me.
* * * *
Clock watching gave way to calendar watching, weeks appearing almost stuck until at last July arrived. By then I’d adjusted to Raymond’s loss. I now thought of it like that, his loss, not mine. By the end of July I’d decided three months was too long a time apart from Tom. I was over Raymond, my life went along smoothly, and when I heard bits about Raymond and Jean-Louis, I offered only snide comment. They no longer had power over me.
The wedding had been on June 15 so three months would be September 15. When August came, my spirits lifted until I saw Raymond and Jean-Louis having lunch at Harvey’s in the Castro. They sat at a window table and I grabbed Tony’s arm to stop him from going in. “No, not here,” I said, nodding at the couple. We ate at The Cove instead where I paid too much attention to my grilled cheese sandwich.
“It had to happen,” Tony offered.
“I know, I know. I just thought by now it wouldn’t hurt.”
It was time to tell Tony about Tom who I’d loved in June, but had no idea on now. I almost said it, but instead drank my Coke because the three-month thing embarrassed me, like I had to pass some kind of test to be loved.
On September 14, a Friday, I fidgeted all day at work, keying entire entries wrong, scrambling phone c
alls, cutting off two people. By the end of the day I was a wreck, but refused to go for a drink with Tony because I had to be clear headed for Tom on Saturday. Soon as I got home I stripped and conjured him for a good solo session, which I repeated at bedtime.
Saturday morning I showered and had breakfast before I called. Clean clothes, brushed hair, fresh shave; a sane person would have thought me nuts, which was entirely correct. I was nuts. I’d done my three-month sentence with no time off for good behavior. I was owed not only my freedom, I was owed Tom. Sitting by the phone, deciding what to say, I saw us reunited in the courtyard at his building. I’d kiss him, then slap him, then kiss him again and he’d understand. Then we’d hurry upstairs and fuck all day and all night and I’d never go home.
I had nothing so organized when I made the call. “Hi, Tom,” I said when he answered. “It’s Alex Toomey.”
“To the day,” he replied, pausing as if he knew how those simple three words would strike me, that they would rescue us both because he’d been counting, too.
“How are you?” he then asked. “Good I hope.”
“I am now. It’s been a long three months.”
“And?”
“I’ve recovered from the breakup, I go to work and see friends, but there’s nobody else.”
“Me, too. Can you fly down, like today?”
“Depends on the airline.”
“You rather I come up there?” he asked.
“No, I like your place better. I’ll check and call you back.”
San Francisco to Los Angeles flights departed almost every hour, so I booked a one o’clock. It was now nine-thirty. “One o’clock flight,” I told him when I called him back. Arrives around two-ten, number 1482.”
“I’ll be there.”
“I can’t believe this,” I said. “After all this time, suddenly we’re back.”
“Almost. See you at the gate.”
* * * *
On the plane, I sipped a Coke and decided to call in sick Monday, maybe even Tuesday, Wednesday. Maybe I’d come down with something lingering. Tom-itis.
He met me at the gate. I had to restrain myself from shoving others out of my path down the jetway, but then there he was, standing just beyond the seating in a blue shirt and khakis, absolutely glowing. I stopped in my tracks to take him in, causing a momentary crowd snarl until somebody poked my back. I then stepped to one side to allow the throng to pass and when I was finally alone, I began to move.