I shot again against his stomach.
He col apsed on top of me and buried his face in my neck. I felt wetness there.
But whether it was sweat or tears I didn’t know.
I’d be lying if I said that the cuddling after sex is better than the actual act. But it does come pretty damn close.
Lying in Tony Rinaldi’s arms.
I could stay here forever.
But could he?
He pul ed me closer.
“That was incredible,” he said.
As good as your wife? I thought. Then I chided myself: Stop it! Stop indulging your doubts and focus on enjoying the moment.
“It was OK,” I said.
He rol ed on top of me. “Just OK?”
“Wel, it’s clear you’re out of practice.”
Tony frowned. “Hmmm. You’re right. Now, where could I get some more training, do you think?”
“Wel, I do offer advanced lessons for my more promising students.”
“More advanced than that? I think I’d have a heart attack, Kevvy.”
Kevvy. That’s what he used to cal me. I felt something inside myself blooming so large that I didn’t think I’d be able to contain it.
“You are kind of old,” I teased. “Maybe we’d have to start at the intermediate level.”
Tony started kissing his way down my body. “No time like the present.”
After the encore, I looked at the time. It was 6:00. I had to meet Freddy at 10:00 at Sexbar. Just then, my phone rang. I picked up the receiver by my couch. (I couldn’t bring myself to have sex with him in the bed where my mother had been sleeping.) Cal er ID told me it was the very woman who had forced me into the living room. I had learned not to skip her cal s.
“I have to take this,” I said to him.
“Mmm,” he said drowsily. “S’OK.”
I sat up on the couch and pressed talk. “What’s up, Mom?”
“Darling, it’s your mother.”
“Yes, I know that,” I said. “What’s up?”
“I just wanted to tel you I’d be home late. I’m going to Hannah Rosenberg’s house to play canasta.”
This was the best news I’d ever heard. “Great.
Have fun.” Tony’s hand crept around to my lap.
Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper.
“Al the girls in the shop today were talking about that bitch Dottie Kubacki’s encounter with a Peeping Tom last night. Most of them thought she’d made it up on the grounds that who would want to peep at Dottie Kubacki?”
Tony was pul ing me back into bed. “That’s nice, Mom,” I said.
“Wil you be OK for dinner without me?” she asked.
Tony put my hand on his reawakening erection.
“Don’t worry,” I told her. “I have what to eat.”
After the second encore (is there a word for that?) Tony and I realized we were starving. Not surprising, considering the amount of calories we must have burned off. Luckily, the fridge was stocked with the leftovers of several nights of my mother’s home cooking. We sat naked at the kitchen table and pigged out on pot roast and gravy sandwiches.
“I have to tel you something,” Tony said.
“Something I didn’t tel you before because I didn’t want to, wel
…”
“Wait,” I interrupted. “You didn’t want to get my hopes up, right?”
Tony grinned. “Yeah, that.”
“Listen,” I said. “How about I take responsibility for my hopes, and you take responsibility for being honest, OK?”
Tony’s eyes widened a little. “When did you get to be so smart? OK, wel, remember when we first met? How I told you I was married and that our relationship was so great? Wel, that wasn’t exactly the truth.”
“You’re not married.”
“We’re separated. Six months now. I don’t think we’re getting back together.”
“You don’t think?”
“I’m being honest here.”
Fair enough. “So, did this afternoon tilt the scales either way?” I regretted asking the question the minute the words left my mouth.
Tony looked down. Took a minute to answer. “I’m trying to keep things separate, if that makes sense.
Not let one thing decide another. I think I owe that to her. To myself, too. Can you understand that?”
“Sure,” I said quietly.
“But this afternoon was great. And,” he said licking his lips, “this pot roast is pretty great, too.”
“So, think we might do this again?” I asked hopeful y.
“Mmm.” Tony took another huge bite of his sandwich. “Wil there be more pot roast?”
“It’s possible,” I said.
Tony leaned over the table and kissed me. “Then you got me.”
After we finished eating, Tony and I, stil naked, went back into the living room and jumped into the sofa bed. I rested my head on his chest. His slow breathing was a narcotic. He asked if he could stay the night. I had to explain that I was meeting Freddy at 10:00.
“Sexbar?” he asked. “Isn’t that like some gay sex club or something?”
I nodded.
“You’re going to a sex club after the day we had together? Are you that insatiable?” He slapped me on the head.
“It’s work,” I told him. I explained that once a month, Freddy and I went there to hand out condoms and brochures about safer sex. It was a volunteer thing we did for the agency Freddy worked for.
I didn’t tel Tony that we did it in our underwear.
“OK,” Tony said, “then you have permission.” He kissed me on the forehead. “I think it’s great that you do this kind of thing. You have a big heart to do volunteer work.”
I stood up and took a playful bow. “Thank you.”
Tony stood, too, and put his arms around me. “But I don’t real y understand about your day job,” he said.
“What exactly is it that you do?”
Uh-oh. “I’m a man of mystery.”
Tony pul ed me closer. “No, seriously, what do you do?”
I had just told Tony that he needed to be honest in our relationship. Could I be any less?
But he was a cop. And a man. An Italian man.
Was there a chance he’d be able to accept how I made a living?
“Wel,” I began, not sure what I was going to say.
Just then, the door opened. “Darling,” my mother cal ed. “I’m home!”
Great, I thought. Last night, I spied on Dottie Kubacki naked and now my mother walks in on me and Tony in the buff.
Karma’s a bitch.
“Oh!” she cried. “Excuse me!” She covered her eyes. “I didn’t see a thing!”
“Hel o, Mrs. Connor,” Tony muttered.
“Tony?” my mother asked. I saw her spread her fingers apart as she peeked through them.
“Yes,” he groaned.
“I thought you were married?” she said.
“He’s separated,” I said.
“Oh, wel, that explains it, then.” She put her hands up to her eyes like blinders. “I’m just going to scoot into my bedroom (her bedroom!) and give you two a chance to, um, finish up. Nice seeing you,” she said to Tony. She took another peek at his naked butt. “
Really nice.”
“Uh, bye, Mrs. Connor,” Tony said.
As soon as she closed the door, Tony pul ed away and hurriedly got dressed. “Stil want to spend the night?” I asked.
“I forgot she was staying here,” Tony said. “What are you doing about that?”
“I’m working on it,” I said.
Tony put his hand on his gun. “My offer stil stands.”
“Thanks, but I think I’l save that as a last resort.”
“Suit yourself,” he said, strapping on his holster.
He pul ed me against him. I liked the way my naked body felt against his clothed one.
“Aren’t you going to get dressed?” he asked me.
�
�I’m going to grab a shower before I head over to meet Freddy,” I said.
“I could use one, too” he said. “Although maybe I’l go to bed with your scent stil on me.”
Inside, I swooned.
“This was great,” Tony said. “Thank you. I’l cal you tomorrow, OK?”
“You better,” I said.
“OK.” He kissed me again. “I guess I’l be going now.”
“OK,” I said, kissing him back. We inched lip-locked toward the door.
“Bye,” Tony said, stil kissing me.
“So long,” I said, not stopping.
“See ya later.” He smiled through our kiss.
“Al igator,” I completed the rhyme.
After a few more minutes, I had to push him away.
“OK, OK, I get the hint,” he said.
I opened the door. “Talk to you tomorrow,” I said.
“I…,” Tony began. “Thank you.”
I thought he was going to say something else.
I closed the door.
I realized that I had forgotten. Forgotten what it was to be purely and total y joyful. To be happy and hopeful and ready for love.
I felt my frozen heart thawing faster than the polar icecaps in an A1 Gore movie.
Oh Lord, was I smitten.
I looked down at my feet. Yep, they were stil on the ground.
But it didn’t feel that way, did it?
I felt like shouting, dancing, and running down the street naked after him. I felt like singing “Don’t Let the Parade Pass Me By” from the back of a steamer ship.
Tony fucking Rinaldi!
I was trying to play it cool. To keep my feelings and expectations low. But now that I had lain in his arms again, now that I thought we might real y have the chance to get back together, I had to admit it: Damn, I loved that boy!
A knock at the door.
He was back!
I was just about to open the door when I realized the knock was coming from inside the apartment.
From my mother’s room.
My room, damn it!
“Is it safe to come out?” she asked.
“One minute!” I yel ed. I kicked my underwear into the closet, hid the lube, and threw a towel around my waist. “OK.”
My mother came out in a red velour robe with matching slippers and a turban. Cleopatra of Long Island. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything,” she said.
“He was just leaving.”
“Naked?”
“Wel, he was getting ready to leave.”
My mother made her way into the kitchen. “I need some tea. I am tel ing you, you could use Hannah Rosenberg’s bean dip for cement.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. Al I could think was: Tony Rinaldi!
“And her cookies! They could deflect bul ets!”
“Yeah.” His hair was even softer than I remembered. It felt like strands of silk when his head traveled down my bel y.
“So, you’re real y crazy about him, no?”
“Hmmm, interesting.” His biceps were like coiled steel covered with rubber and when he came he made the most sensual…
My mother walked over to me and yanked my hair.
“Ow! What’d you do that for?” I said, rubbing my head.
“You haven’t been listening to a word I said.”
Had she been talking? “That’s no reason to make me bald.”
“You think I didn’t see that same look in your eyes whenever Tony came around the house? From the time you were eleven, twelve years old? I should have told you that you were gay then and saved you the soul-searching.”
She took my face in her hands. “Baby. That kind of love, it’s not always a good thing, you know? We al think, ‘wow, love.’” She widened her eyes comical y.
“The movies tel us love is such a great thing that we can’t have too much. But you know what? You can. You real y can love someone too much. That kind of love can kil you, you know?”
I nodded.
“I saw what you went through the first time with Tony. Flow you suffered. Oh, I saw it al. You think a mother doesn’t know?”
She put her hand on her heart. “A mother knows, Kevin. Whatever pain you’ve felt in your life, I’ve felt double-triple.
“I don’t want to see you hurt that way again.”
That makes two of us, I thought. “I know, Mom. I’l be careful.”
“You’l be a lot of things,” my mother said, “but you won’t be careful.
“You see, I know you think I’m a crazy lady. But why do you think I’m here? Because I love that old man I’ve been married to for forty years so much that I refuse-refuse! — to share him with anyone else.
“When he wooed me-oy, he was the most romantic man I’d ever known. At night, after my parents had gone to bed, he’d throw pebbles at the window to wake me. Then he’d sing to me, love songs, and I’d yel down ‘shhh!’ but he wouldn’t listen.
Final y, we’d see the lights go on in my parents’ room, and he’d run away, and I’d be standing there by the open window thinking I wished I could just go down and run off with him.
“I know what it is to love too much, Kevin. I’ve been careful with my money and careful with my children, but I’ve never been careful with my heart.
“Not even once.
“And I think, maybe in that way, you’re a little more like your mother than you know.”
I don’t think that I’ve ever heard my mother talk so honestly. If I weren’t so fucking happy at that moment, it might even have sunk in. But as it was, her words fel on me like rain on hot pavement, there for just a moment before evaporating into the air.
I kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks for caring, Mom. I love you. But I have to go. Freddy’s waiting for me.”
“There’s another one waiting?” she asked.
“You know Freddy,” I said. “We’ve been friends forever. There’s nothing between us.” Wel, nothing worth mentioning, I added to myself.
“Whatever. Just mark my words-don’t let that Tony Rinaldi break your heart. Although,” she added mischievously, “he does have a great tush.”
CHAPTER 17
A Surprising Discovery at the Sex Club
I took a quick shower, threw on my cutest underwear (black N2N square cut with a generous pouch), cargo shorts, a white tank top, and high-top sneakers and grabbed a cab to a nondescript building in the meat packing district by Greenwich Vil age. The building had no sign but those-in-the-know knew it as Sexbar. I was twenty minutes late.
I was stil so strung out on Tony-loving that I felt I could have flown there. Which was probably why I was singing “Oh My Man I Love Him So” to myself the whole cab ride down there and why I tipped the driver ten dol ars.
“Hel o!” Freddy cried as I got out of the car. “Tardy much?” He hoisted his bag of flyers and condoms over his shoulder and walked towards me. “You know how many men have missed out on some quality AIDS education while you were off doing who knows what?”
“Sorry,” I said, trying to keep the sil y smile off my face.
“Aw, don’t worry about it.” Freddy waved his hand.
“This place won’t get busy til about midnight anyway.”
“I wore cute underwear.”
“Thattaboy,” Freddy winked and gave me thumbs up.
Then he cocked his head and squinted his eyes.
“Are you OK?”
“I’m fine,” I told him. “Let’s go in.”
He put a hand on my chest. “No, wait a minute.”
He looked me up and down quizzical y. “There’s something different. You seem a little strange.”
I tried to walk past him, but Freddy’s arm was solid like a tree trunk.
“What is it?” he said, more to himself than to me.
“It’s nothing. Come on, you said it yourself, we have work to do.”
“Not so fast, Junior.” He brought his face close enough to mine that I could feel his breath on my cheeks. “You look…�
�� he blinked twice. “You look happy!”
I couldn’t hold it in. “I am happy!” I shouted. I grabbed him in a bear hug and, even though he had fifty pounds of muscle on me, I spun him around. I stepped back and pointed to my face. “Look! This is me! Happy!” I gave a little jump.
Freddy laughed. “I take it you got laid?”
“Royal y.”
Tony?
“Final y.”
Freddy smiled with just a touch of sadness in his eyes. “Good for you,” he said. Then, seriously, “I just hope you’re careful.”
Why was everyone tel ing me that?
“So,” he whispered conspiratorial y, “how was it?”
“It was,” I said, “worth waiting for.”
“You haven’t exactly been waiting.” Freddy grinned.
I smiled back and forgave him for not knowing what I myself hadn’t realized until just hours ago: I real y had been.
And now the waiting was over.
By 1:00 in the morning, my ass had been patted about a hundred times, my nipples pinched half that much, and my crotch groped by a handful of especial y stoned or brazen customers of Sexbar.
Which, by the way, was not a bar at al but a series of hal ways with some large carpeted rooms, a few smal er ones with seating, and about fifty smal cubicles with doors that ended two feet above the floor like the doors of a men’s changing room, where two (or three, if they were smal or limber enough) interested parties could retire for what passed for privacy.
There was also a snack room that served soft drinks but no alcohol, which is where Freddy and I stood in our underwear giving out safer-sex materials. Since we were young and cute and scantily clad, it wasn’t hard to get a guy’s attention.
“We’re almost out of goodies,” Freddy said, handing me the last of his bag’s contents. “After this we can get out of here.” An especial y handsome young man in a jockstrap walked by. “Or not.”
I handed them back. “Can you get this? If I don’t go pee right now, I’m going to wet myself.”
“Naw, that wil just get the golden shower lovers rushing over, and you know how they are-they’l never stop buying us sodas.”
“OK,” I said, “I’l be right back.”
Freddy and I had been doing these volunteer nights once a month for almost a year, so I knew my way around. The bathroom was just past the video lounge, through a row of cubbies, and behind the orgy room. I got there quickly, peed voluminously, shook myself for twice as long as I needed to (when you’re just wearing underwear, you have to watch out for spotting), and headed back to the snack room.
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