I moaned. How could I think when my body was off in a sexual wonderland? “The den,” I managed to murmur. I pulled up my pants and stumbled into the small den, the room planned as my father’s study until we realized he never used it. I pulled Greg along with me, releasing his hand to flick on the gas fireplace. He closed and locked the door behind us, then came to me in the firelit darkness and took me gently into his arms.
We kissed again, tugging at each other’s jeans until we could kick them off. Then we were on the floor, kissing and rolling over the Persian rug until Greg growled and pinned me beneath him. I was so wet with wanting him that Greg slid into me easily, but he started with shallow strokes, so teasing and gentle that I had to cry out for more.
“Yes!” I gasped when he plunged in.
In the next room, the dishwasher made a shooshing noise as water surged in. Feeling freed by the camouflaging noise, I let myself spiral into the maddening pleasure Greg evoked.
Oh, I could see myself doing this in five years . . . ten years . . . thirty. Yes, I could do this indefinitely.
5
“Oh come, oh come, Immanuel,” sang the choir on Mom’s Canadian Brass CD. It was one of my Christmas favorites, and I made sure we played it at least once each year while trimming the tree. Mom had bought fresh pine boughs to hang from the Victorian arches in the parlor, and the scent of pine mingled with the waves of orange and cinnamon coming from the cups of warm wassail that Mom had heated on the kitchen stove. When Wolf stopped by to drop off Leo we had talked Wolf into joining us, too, and now he was poised at the top of the ladder, fastening ornaments to the highest spot while Leo and I dug into boxes of tissue for Victorian-style ornaments, our theme for this year. That meant we had to set aside all the other ornaments—the family keepsakes, the cutesy things I’d made in grade school, the Mickey Mouse–shaped disco balls.
“The Victorian ornaments will work well with your subdued color scheme,” Leo told Mom. “Where in the world did you get those candle-shaped lights?”
Mom snickered as she wove green florist’s wire through a pine branch. “I ordered them from Tokyo last June. I had seen them at Madeline Canby’s New Year’s bash last year, but when I learned what she paid for them at the Christmas Boutique on Union Square—” Mom pressed a hand to her chest, feigning a heart attack. “I realized I had to go directly to the manufacturer.”
Leo was nodding so vehemently with approval, I pinged his shoulder. This was the guy who had been calling my mother Martha Stewart just days ago.
“Ouch,” he said, plucking an ornate lavender and silver glass bulb from my hand and handing it up to Wolf.
The night was sweet, and I was acutely aware of being in the moment, so comfortable here at home with Mom, the Christmas maven, so tickled to have my two good friends Leo and Wolf here to play with, so exhilarated with hope about my future with Greg. It was one of those few times in which I was happy and also aware of that happiness even as it embraced me—a poignant, giddy moment.
“Shh!” I grabbed Leo’s sleeve. “This song is so exquisitely beautiful, I could cry.”
Leo frowned. “Doesn’t sound familiar. What’s it called?”
“I don’t know, something French.”
“D’ou viens-tu, bergere,” Wolf answered in melodic French.
“You speak Portugese and French, too?” Leo blinked in obvious approval.
“And Spanish,” Wolf said modestly. “But you, too, would be multilingual if you were born in Europe.”
“So modest,” I said, looking up at Wolf. “Isn’t he just the perfect guy?”
“You don’t have to sell me,” Leo said, tossing aside crumbled tissue papers.
I was so tickled that they were falling for each other! I wanted to dance around the room and hug them both, then give Mom a squeeze for good measure, but I had to remind myself that Wolf and Leo were new to Christmas with the Greenwoods, and I didn’t want to frighten them and send them off shrieking from my shameless display of emotion.
“Where is Dr. Greenwood this evening?” Leo asked as he handed a velvet angel up to Wolf.
“That’s right,” I said. “Dad usually takes off so that he can decorate the tree with us.”
“He’s on call,” Mom explained.
She didn’t seem ruffled, but it sounded like a lame excuse to me. “I thought that meant he was supposed to keep his pager on in case of an emergency.”
Mom kept winding wire around the evergreen branch. “A few years ago he decided that his spare time was better spent at the hospital, where you can always find an emergency.”
“I don’t know, Mom,” I teased. “Sounds suspicious to me. Are you sure Dad isn’t having a fling with some nurse?”
I was joking, but the words seemed to take Mom by surprise. “Hell, no,” she said. “No such luck.” I stared at her. What was that all about?
Mom turned away from me and focused her attention on Wolf and Leo. “Guys, promise me you’ll never go into medicine.”
Wolf shook his head. “I’m a programmer. Computers are my forte. People are too complicated.”
“I’m in television,” Leo answered. “Talent development for DBC Network.”
“Really?” Wolf brightened. “How interesting. Do you have dealings with celebrities?”
“Rarely,” Leo said, obviously not willing to admit that he was answering phones for the Director of Talent Development. Being a good friend, I let it slide and pulled out some pearlized beads for the tree. “But I run into celebs all the time at Rock Center,” Leo went on. “That’s where our studios and offices are located.”
“Now that sounds exciting,” Wolf admitted as he descended the ladder. He cradled a cup of spiced wassail and sat on the velvet sofa. “I’ll bet you know some great places there.”
“You should come,” I said.
“We’re getting a new apartment,” Leo added. “A converted loft in Tribeca.”
“Which we need to fill with roommates as soon as we get back,” I prodded Leo.
He waved me off. “Come stay with us, Wolf. You’re welcome anytime. You’ll love New York.”
While Mom went into the kitchen to take a call, the three of us collapsed on the furniture to sip our drinks and stare up at the half-decorated tree. The CD changed, and jazz strains from the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s Charlie Brown Christmas made me smile. “‘It’s a sad tree,’” I said.
“‘It’s not a bad little tree,’” Leo chimed in. “‘All it needs is a little love.’”
“That was so cool, the way those cartoon kids would wave their arms over the scrawny tree and turn it into a Christmas masterpiece,” Wolf said.
“Hey, it could happen,” I said. “Anything could happen at Christmas.”
“Thank you, Linus,” Leo said. “The only person I know who could stretch a one-day holiday into a month-long event.”
“Oh, that’s Madison,” Wolfie said quietly. “She was always that way, upbeat and hopeful. Looking for the silver lining in the cloud that was dumping on you.”
“Wolfie! You make me sound like a frosted flake,” I said.
“No, not at all.” He reached across and squeezed my hand. “You were a good friend during a very difficult time for me.”
“What was the worst year of high school for you?” Leo asked.
Wolf snickered. “All of it. I spent those years trying to be someone I wasn’t, trying to make my family happy.”
Trying to be straight, I recalled. Wolf had made a dutiful effort to conform, but the kids who knew him well had been able to see how that struggle tortured him.
“How did you two get to be friends?” Leo asked.
I leaned back and let my head loll toward Wolf. “We were friends by default at first, weren’t we? When Mr. O’Dell made us lab partners?”
“And you looked so cute in those goggles,” Wolf teased.
I sighed. “The best part about high school is that it is now over. I would never want to relive those years.”
> “But we had some fun, didn’t we?” Wolf asked.
“How about the senior prom?” I nudged Wolf. “When you smuggled that bottle of champagne inside your big, black umbrella?”
He nudged me back. “What about you, with that silver flask in your tiny beaded bag?”
Leo’s jaw dropped. “I can’t believe you two went to the prom together. Don’t tell me you rented one of those tacky tuxedos.”
“We did it all!” I insisted. “From the tacky tux to the rented limo and the orchid wrist corsage. And I’ll have you know, I have fond memories of my senior prom.”
Wolf was smiling. “God, I hated those years. But you were a good friend, Madison. You always dealt with me honestly. Other girls tried to manipulate me, back me into a corner.” He rubbed his eyes for a second. “Brrr!”
“So when did you come out?” Leo asked.
“Graduation day. I wore cowboy boots and a pink tutu under my gown.”
“Needless to say, his parents were not pleased or impressed,” I added.
“Ah, yes.” Leo nodded sagely. “Parents often have trouble dealing with the pink tutu.”
“Especially when the shoes clash,” I said.
“They thought my sexual identity was a result of spending my high school years in San Francisco. As if it were that simple. But they blamed themselves, then tried to reform me. Obviously, a gay man is hardly a fruitful heir to the throne.”
Leo took a sip of his drink, then frowned. “And Edward the Eighth thought he had problems when he met Wally Simpson.”
“You’re way too young to know about Edward and Wallace,” Wolf said.
Leo shrugged. “I’m a hopeless Anglophile. I’m so upset that Di has left Charles. Do you think they can work it out? Prince Chuck can be such a cad. Have you ever met them?”
Just then Mom breezed back in and stopped to gaze up at the tree. “It’s really coming along,” she said cheerfully.
I nudged Leo with my foot. “That means: Back to work!”
As we returned to our posts, sorting and hunting and stringing and hanging, I stepped back from the towering tree and let my eyes go fuzzy. It was a trick I’d started as a child, a way to soft-focus on the tree as I tried to capture the romantic image in my head. Of course, I always had the Carpenters’ Merry Christmas, Darling playing in the background as I ventured off into my Christmas fantasy.
This year, the object of the song was Greg. I knew he was working tonight; after our romp in the basement, he had mentioned a catering gig at the Art Institute. With his holiday schedule, I realized that we would be spending many nights apart.
But here I was, gazing up at my Christmas tree and thinking of him and of our future together.
Was he thinking of me as he arranged swirls of California roll on trays and dished up tender filets of salmon muniere? Was he planning to make me a part of his private Christmas celebration?
Somehow, I doubted it. With his cool demeanor and calculating manner, Greg seemed to operate on a different emotional level, his feelings buried miles beneath those dark brown eyes. I bit my lip, wondering how to gain access to that well-hidden territory. Oh, why hadn’t I paid more attention to Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus when the galleys circulated at work? Weighing heavily upon me was the memory of Greg, the bad boy, and Madison, the dull, brown-haired honors student. I couldn’t let those old roles rise again! I had come so far since high school.
Visions of my New York life taunted me, complete with Drucie from copyediting yelling at me for being late, and Hugh sneaking into my office with glasses of sherry. Then there was my boss, Ms. Macy Gramble, who barely noticed me on a Valium-induced good day. On a bad day, she mistook me for a doormat. Okay, maybe I wasn’t the most assertive person in the world, but I was going to hold my own in this relationship with Greg. It was obvious that the guy liked me. All I needed to do was parlay his feelings into something deeper.
Of course, I didn’t have a clue how to do that, but I was determined to give it the old A-plus try.
Although I worried that Greg refrained from articulating his emotions, I was reassured by the way he demonstrated his attraction to me so many times—and in so many delicious ways—over the days that followed. One afternoon while Mom was off with her new best friend Emily, I sneaked Greg up to my old room and we put a real notch in the old French Provincial bedpost. One night when the weather wasn’t too chilly, we sneaked out to Mom’s garden and made love under the blanket of stars, being extra careful to swallow our moans and cries so that we wouldn’t alarm the neighbors. Although Greg and I maintained casual conversation about the party details, I wasn’t able to swing the topic over to the subject of our relationship. Somehow, it was difficult to segue from “Do you like the lavender lace tablecloths?” to “So where do you see us in two years?”
But today I was determined to get some answers. The sex was great fun, but I’d seen enough of the developing relationship between Leo and Wolf—who were already planning a summer trip to Portugal—to know that Greg was dodging intimacy.
That day, after Mom made a final decision on the tablecloths (ivory with a gold lace overlay) I rode with Greg in his van to the linen supplier. I sort of enjoyed commanding the passenger seat, pretending to be Greg’s sidekick as he headed down 101 to the supply house in Bernal Heights. Bad Boys, that theme song from the TV docudrama Cops was playing on the radio, and Greg tapped out the beat on the steering wheel, as if he actually enjoyed it.
“So,” I said, realizing I was going to just have to take the dive. “How does your family celebrate Christmas? Any Kasami family traditions I should know about?”
“Holidays are sort of a nonissue with us. My dad’s been in the catering business since I was, like, four. I don’t remember having a single Christmas dinner with my family. Certainly not on Christmas Day.”
“But you must do something,” I prodded, hoping for an invitation to join in, even if it was just an eggnog party or a simple gift exchange on the twenty-sixth.
“Not really.”
“Do you at least exchange gifts?” I asked. “What about your sisters and their kids? Don’t you pick up a few things for the nieces and nephews? I’d be happy to help you shop.” There! I’d wedged my nails into the crack.
“My sisters usually take care of that stuff. What do I know about buying for kids? She picks up what they want and I give her the money. It’s easier that way.”
Thwarted, I turned toward the window as the lyric spilled out: “Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?”
“I hope they have enough gold lace overlays,” Greg said. “Maybe I should have called ahead. This time of year, everyone is stretched by holiday entertaining.”
How could he dwell on mundane details when our first Christmas together was crumbling before my eyes. “So what are you doing on Christmas?” I asked blatantly. “I mean, I know you’ve got our party on Christmas Eve, but—”
“Actually, I have two parties Christmas Eve. Yours and the Collins party on Russian Hill.”
Call me wimpy, but my heart sank a little to learn that we didn’t have an exclusive on Greg for Christmas Eve. “Oh. Bummer.”
“Hey!” He reached over and rubbed the back of my hand. “Don’t sound so betrayed. I’m not sleeping with any of the Collins daughters.”
“That’s a relief,” I tried to joke.
“Yeah. Especially since they’re, like in their sixties.”
I laughed, turning my hand to give Greg’s a squeeze. What was I worried about? The chemistry between us was undeniable.
“I hope you don’t mind a minor detour,” he said, taking the exit for John McLaren Park. “I know a very private little drive, surrounded by trees. I used to come here on my bike and do yoga in the woods, back when I had spare time.”
I wanted to tease him, but the image of Greg meditating in the woods appealed to me in a Zen sort of way. “Feeling the need to meditate today?”
“Definitely, and I figured we’d better make a
stop before we load up.” He pulled the van onto a grassy lip off the side of the road and turned to me. “You know the old adage: Never meditate with a van full of linens.” He grinned at me, then headed into the back of the van.
“Don’t think I’ve ever heard that one,” I said, following him. The van was clean, the floor covered with smooth industrial carpeting. The small windows in the back were dark enough to keep anyone from looking in. Which would prohibit them from seeing Greg strip off his clothes, which he was doing at the moment in a relaxed, almost teasing manner.
“Do you always meditate naked?” I asked, folding my arms as I hunched there.
“Always.” He tossed his boxers onto his black jeans, then knelt before me. His body was so perfect, lean and strong, his shoulders a beautiful square, his chest hairless and rippled with subtle muscles. I must have been gaping, but I’d never seen him totally naked in this glorious light.
“You’re staring.” He latched onto my belt buckle and pulled me down so that I was kneeling opposite him.
“You’re gorgeous,” I answered, running my hands over his shoulders and down his chest. It was imminently clear that Greg wanted me right here and now, but I wasn’t ready to abandon my mission. “And you know I’m crazy about you. But I have to know if this is about more than sex.”
“Is anything ever so black-and-white?” he said. He pulled my sweater off over my head, then dug his hands under the waistband of my jeans to cup my butt. My body was betraying me, warming to his touch. My hard nipples pressed through my bra into his chest, wanting him, wanting more of him. “How could this be only about sex?” He moved his hands around to undo my belt buckle and split open the zipper of my jeans. I closed my eyes and sucked in my breath when he shoved a hand in my panties.
He had me by the short and curlies, as they used to say in high school. But I couldn’t relent now. I couldn’t.
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