by Lynn Shurr
“Absolutely not! Horrible flannel shirt, nice snug jeans and tight T-shirt, but your outfit really doesn’t come together.” Brian poured the wine and gestured to Howdy to drink.
He took a big swallow. “Good. The T-shirt is kind of an accident. I shrunk it in the wash.”
Brian studied the kicker’s hands wrapped around the globe of the wineglass. “When did you last have a manicure?”
“Um, never. ‘Keep your nails short and clean, that’s all you need to do,’ Grandpa said.”
“See, so not gay.”
“Great! And that’s why you never hit on me.”
“Howdy, even if you were gay, I wouldn’t hit on you. I require a certain level of sophistication that you simply do not have. You are not my type.”
“Who is? Don’t answer me. I already know. If he swung that way, you’d want Joe Dean Billodeaux. Cassie wants him, too. She preened for him in this pretty blue sweater. I thought maybe she intended that for me, but I figured it out by the end of the day.”
“Well, Joe is the man of my dreams, but approaching someone so ragingly hetero usually results in getting beaten. Besides, I would never hook up with anyone on the team. I am tolerated for my elegant and precise punting abilities, but nothing more. Sometimes, I’m lonely. You know Ancient Andy wouldn’t stay with me, and he had enough clout to get a private room like Joe. Had it put in his contract.”
“Hey, they told me I had no choice. The punter and the kicker room together, no exceptions.”
“Newbie. Just the owner wanting to save on housing costs, the economics of the game.” The microwave dinged. Brian plated a steak on a pure white ceramic dish and switched it with the steaming potatoes. “I should toss a salad to go with this.”
“Not for me. I’ll dip some carrots in the yogurt sauce.”
“Thanks.”
“For not having to make a salad?”
“No, for rooming with me without making a fuss.”
“Maybe I should have. Then, I wouldn’t have everyone thinking I’m gay.”
“Howdy, listen to me. No one thinks you are gay, not even this woman you seem so taken with. She wanted to shake you off, and alas, one sure way to do that is to accuse a straight guy of being homosexual. That kind of guy will either stomp off mad as hell like you, or try to prove he’s not by giving her the best sex of her life. Too bad you chose the first.”
“I couldn’t hardly do anything else with Joe, Nell, and the little ones standing around. Was I supposed to drag her into the barn?”
Brian nuked the second steak. “I don’t know. Some women love that kind of macho display. I’d have to meet her to say.”
“Not much chance of that. Watch out for the steak sauce. It’s got some bite to it.”
The punter leered at him. “Oh, I do like it hot and spicy.”
Howdy shifted uncomfortably on the barstool. “Bri, don’t do that. We’re pals, okay? Only pals.”
“Yanking your chain, that’s all. What can I do to make you feel more comfortable in my presence?”
“How about not getting full body waxes anymore? A man with no hair on his chest or legs, and who knows where else freaks me out.”
“Sorry, pal. No can do. It’s part of my bodily maintenance routine. Name something else.”
“Help get Cassie interested in me and not Joe Dean.”
“Now why would you want a woman who treats you like dog crap, Howdy?”
“Well, I figure Nell and Joe thought we’d hit it off like they sort of hand-picked her for me. She’s kind of a challenge like a sixty-yard field goal. You know I have trouble meeting nice girls. Nothing bothers me on the field, but when I get face to face with a beautiful woman, I don’t do so well.”
“I keep telling you the New Orleans bars are full of willing gals. You only have to say you’re a Sinners player.”
“Trouble is I don’t look much like a football player, too lanky. Neither do you. But is that what you do?”
Brian peered over the rim of his wineglass. “Sometimes. As for being slim and shorter than most of the guys, people believe what they want to believe.”
“I don’t think I want the kind of girl who hangs out in bars looking for football players. Maybe I’d be able to meet someone in church, but that’s pretty hard when we play every Sunday.”
“Forgot you were raised Baptist. Every time the team hits a bar I keep expecting you to ask for a sarsaparilla.”
To make a point, Howdy helped himself to more pinot noir. “‘Jesus drank wine and would have appreciated a cold beer in the wilderness,’ Grandpa always said. He made some wicked peach brandy on the back porch, too. Grandma didn’t approve.”
“I suppose she would have said I’m going to hell for my sexual preferences.”
“Nope. Granny felt God had enough love to go around for every kind of person he put on this earth and said so often. We only need to ask for forgiveness.”
“Good woman.”
“Yeah.” Howdy tossed back the last of his wine. “She died when I was fourteen. Grandpa and me batched it until I left for college. He’s gone now, too. My mom left me on their doorstep when I was three. Never saw her again. Don’t know who my daddy was. I know what lonely is, Brian. So are you going to help me? Cassie, she’s gorgeous.”
Brian twinkled his bright, perfect smile at Howdy. “Now that I understand. We need to start with a personal makeover and a game plan.”
FIVE
“I’d call that a failure, a colossal failure.” Nell paced their spacious bedroom, from the French doors to the fireplace where a small blaze provided the only light, and back to the doors again. “Cassie accused that sweet boy of being gay. I overheard.”
“My fault. I gave her the idea when I touted Howdy’s good points before he showed up. I said he roomed with Brian Lightfoot who is light in the loafers, yeah, bad joke, and never complained. What I meant was McCoy is so good-natured he gets along with everyone. Might have helped if you hadn’t referred to him as sweet like you did just now.” Hands behind his head on the pillows, Joe stretched out on their king-sized bed watched his wife go back and forth.
“So now it’s my fault they didn’t get along!” Nell threw up her hands.
Joe patted the mattress. “Hop up here and be a good little psychologist. We don’t play the blame game anymore, remember?”
“Sorry, you’re right.”
The bed, made to fit Joe’s six-three, two hundred pound dimensions and not her petite form, presented a challenge. They’d found an antique four-poster and had it artfully expanded to fit modern bedding. It sat high above a thick oriental rug. She kept a wooden stepstool on her side to make access to the raised mattress easier. Nell often thought a small trampoline would serve even better. At least, sliding down the side to get out presented no problem. She climbed up beside Joe.
“Roll over and let me rub your back. You gave Corazon the whole weekend off. With all the children to take care of and the cooking to do, no wonder you are tense, sugar. Let Daddy Joe make you feel better, sweetheart.”
Those quick hands, those magical fingers dug into her shoulders. She sighed. “And you want more babies.”
“We can always hire another nanny. Besides, that’s not all I want.” He put those sculpted lips against her neck and gave her a light nip.
She felt him growing hard against her thighs, the old backrub about to become sex routine—not that she minded. The kids slept, worn out by riding and kicking footballs. Cassie, stowed away in a distant guestroom, wouldn’t hear, though it might be good if she did. They still had a vital sex life and a close marriage that left no space for her to come between them.
Joe massaged harder and pushed more urgently against her legs. One of his hands went AWOL in order to unsnap and lower his zipper and showed up again at the same place on her anatomy. Jeans and underwear cast aside, he worked his way under her top and deftly unhooked her bra, an old skill he’d never lost. Nell calculated he’d gotten them both naked in less
than thirty seconds, but didn’t bother to change positions or pull down the covers. He simply delved between her legs with his erection and filled her with his warm, hard length. One clever hand massaged her breasts, and one long thumb stroked her cleft and held him tight against her as he picked up his rhythm.
Joe would make sure she came before he did. He was generous that way. Women wept when they ran off to Vegas to marry and the news came out in the tabloids. Some of them possibly prayed the marriage would not last. But it had, oh, it had. Married and monogamous, no condoms came between them. Not being able to conceive naturally because of all her chemotherapy treatments and the bone marrow transplant proved to be an unexpected blessing when it came to spontaneous and joyous sex. Together, they raised Joe’s son by another woman, the boy Cassie had given them, and twin girls she’d carried thanks to her sister’s eggs and in vitro fertilization. If she weren’t sterile, they would most likely have brought several more children into the world in the last five years.
Her mind shut down as her pleasure swelled, growing and growing until she tightened and burst free. Joe never ceased moving, simply quickened his pace, building on her orgasm, making it rise again until he brought them both to a stunningly explosive completion. Nell lay there limp, still with her back pressed against his broad, steaming hot chest.
“You know,” he whispered in her ear. “If we lived a hundred years ago and were both Catholic, we’d probably have six or seven kids by now because I can’t keep my hands off you, sugar.”
Nell kept her eyes closed and tried to strengthen her will, but it, too, had gone soft and lax. “We don’t live a hundred years ago, and I will never be Catholic. People have small families now.”
“Because they can’t afford big ones. But we can. Don’t you ever wonder about those three frozen babies, how they’d turn out? Would they be boys or girls, have curly hair like mine or straighter like the Abbott family, be tall or tiny?” His breath warmed that vulnerable space between her cheek and collarbone.
“They are embryos, Joe, just embryos, but yes, sometimes I wonder.”
“I been reading up again. After five years, most likely not all of them would implant. Maybe we’d only get one more. After having twins that would be real easy on you, cher heart.”
Nell butted him and his flaccid penis away. She rolled over to face her husband of seven years. “Don’t you believe it! I know your mother. She’ll get another novena going with your four sisters and the old church ladies involved. She’ll pray and pray for all those embryos to implant, and they will. It’s like she has a direct hotline to God. Last time, she asked for girls, and we got two of them.”
“Come on Nell.” Joe stroked her cheek. “I’m the superstitious one, not you. You’re all about science. The odds aren’t good three will make it. They didn’t last time.”
“My fault because I got between Cassie and the man trying to molest her, and he slammed me against a pillar. Don’t remind me!”
“I never blamed you, Tink. Stuff happens. We don’t really know why.” Joe stroked her short, sleek hair like he would a nervous kitten held in the palm of his hand.
Nell sniffed and squeezed her eyes shut trying to hold back the tears. “You know how crazy I get on the hormones. Last time, I nearly went nuts when the doctor put me to bed for the last six weeks of the pregnancy. I got so jealous of Norma Jean Scruggs I stowed away in her motor home to catch you two in the act and ended up having my babies in the bathroom after she wrecked that bus. I’m not good at carrying children.”
“Sure you are. I couldn’t do it any better.” That made her laugh. He suspected a tee-tiny crack in her resistance. “I do recall how crazy for sex you were last time, and I couldn’t do anything about it because I had to save up my sperm to inseminate Emily’s eggs. This time we could have all the sex we want beforehand. Of course, there’s that long dry spell afterwards while the embryos settle in.” He sighed so plaintively Nell chuckled again. “But we all got to make sacrifices for this to work.”
“I haven’t agreed,” she reminded him.
He went for a quick changeup so rapid the opposition would never see it coming. Rolling onto his back, he tucked Nell against his side. “I saw what you meant today about Cassie having a crush on me.”
Nell shoved herself half way up and planted her hands on his sweaty chest. She stared into those deep chocolate brown Billodeaux eyes reflecting little licks of flame from the fireplace opposite the bed. “This is more than a crush. She means to destroy our marriage and take you and the kids away from me.”
“Ain’t gonna happen, Tink, but having her here is making you tense. I say we go away for a while, just the two of us. We’ll go to Phoenix, and you start taking those drugs to make the implantation work.”
“Joe!” She slapped one solid pec and doubted if he felt the blow at all. It took a three-hundred pound lineman to get his attention.
“Hear me out. Then, we travel to the Grand Canyon and stay at that old lodge at Bright Angel. We hike, watch sunsets, drink mojitos, relax. We don’t come back until the procedure is done, and Cassie has to face the fact we are having more children made from our love for each other. Let’s send her that message, Nell. Let’s do it.”
“What about the children we already have?”
“You know Corazon and Knox Polk will take good care of them. Cassie can be here every weekend and not get on your nerves. And I just might ask Howdy to stay here and help out with the ranch while I’m gone. He grew up on one and knows the ropes. He and Cassie could keep the horses exercised.”
“Cassie will see right through that.”
“So, she can stay away if she wants. What do you say, my tiny Tink?”
She burrowed her face into his chest hair. “Joe, what if I lose all three babies?”
“I thought you were afraid to have three? But it don’t make no never mind to me. I suspect we got a big, strong angel watching over us.”
“Yeah, bribed by your mother. Fine, let’s do it.”
SIX
His discomfort growing by the minute, Howard McCoy sat sweating under a plastic salon cape. He clutched a cup of strong espresso in a cup so small it made his hands seem huge and clumsy. Playing in the background, show tunes from Mamma Mia! brought back ABBA and disco from oblivion. More than one person in the various booths, both hairdressers and clients, sang along to Dancing Queen. Brian Lightfoot hummed the tune from his self-assigned seat on a café chair to Howdy’s left rear.
“Could you shut up?” Howdy growled, showing his nerves.
“But it’s such a great song from a fantastic movie starring Colin Firth as a gay man who might have fathered a daughter. What’s not to love?” Brian sang the chorus aloud.
Joaquin, the stylist assigned to the kicker at the unisex salon, sunk his thin, artistic fingers deep into Howdy’s scalp and began massaging conditioner into the roots of his damp hair. “Such lovely thick hair ju got. Ju never go bald,” he raved in his heavy Latino accent. “An’ my favorite color, ches-nut. Ches-nut. Not auburn, doan you think, Brian? Auburn got more red.”
“Yes,” Brian replied. “I think you nailed it.” Howdy squirmed in the barber chair and slopped some of the coffee on his bib.
“Ju must sit still now. Finish drinking, and we begin to cut.” Joaquin peeled off the transparent gloves he’d used to apply the treatment and flung them into a tall, red waste can, an accent piece in the mostly black and silver décor. He lifted a few locks of hair and considered his next move. “What ju think, Brian?”
Howdy swallowed the coffee in one gulp. He prayed he wouldn’t need to use the restroom in this place, though not everyone here was gay. Perfectly at ease women filled some of the booths, but all the stylists and even the shampoo boys, especially the shampoo boys, swished when they walked. He didn’t think he’d be able to go if they only had urinals on the wall and not private stalls, the least of his worries right now. What did Joaquin and Brian have planned for him—maybe little spikes and red h
ighlights, God forbid!
“Ah, can’t we just put some goop in it and comb it straight back if you want it out of my eyes?” he suggested, trying to escape anything worse.
“No, that is so last year and does not suit ju. Your fabulous look is All American Boy, no, Brian?
“Nailed it again, Joaquin.” Brian kept saying “nailed” to irk him, Howdy knew it. “How about a razor thin semi-part low on the right, then an angled sweep across the brow ending with the hint of a curl on the left?”
“That would work. I must do some thinning first, then blend in the back and sides. We begin. Ju doan wince. Be a good boy, and I give you a lollipop.”
Howdy wrinkled his face again. He couldn’t think of anything to be sucked or licked that didn’t bring an obscene picture to his mind. He drew on his considerable powers of concentration to stay still and get through the ordeal. In the end, he had to admit he looked pretty sharp and smelled pleasantly of the scented powder whisked over his bare neck with a feather-light brush.
“Thanks. You did a good job,” he told Joaquin who appeared offended.
“No, I did a great job! I save ju from looking like a hick, a hayseed, a…”
“Fantastic work, Joaquin. I am sure Howdy will be a regular customer from now on,” Brian said as he moved his pal from the booth to the register, picking up the scribbled tab in the process. “Here you go. I got you a special rate for newcomers.” He handed over the bill.
“Three-hundred dollars for a haircut!”
“Joaquin usually charges more. And he worked you in as a favor to me. Don’t forget to add the tip. He’ll expect twenty percent. Some goes to the shampoo boy.”
“A sixty dollar tip? You think Joe Dean pays this much to have his hair cut?”
“Oh, honey chile, I know he does, but he uses a different salon.”
“Next time, can I go there?”
“Up to you, but Joaquin did stunning work.” Brian gave an eloquent shrug implying he’d be a fool to change hairdressers.