"Before we clear out, though, I think we need to set a few things straight," Tam said. "I—we—came here to inform you of our engagement and make our peace and build a relationship. We both very much want that."
"I doubt very much that Quinton wants that," Syd said.
"Typical," Quinn said.
"You've always wanted to hurt me from the time you were very young."
"And whom did I learn that from, mother, huh? When were you ever a mother to me?"
"Oh, God, this is not to be borne. Always on the same binge. 'Mommy and Daddy didn't love me.' Take a number, Quinnie, and get on the end of a very long line. My own father beat my mother mercilessly. They both died too young and too late, and we were raised by a disapproving aunt and a randy uncle, which is why we all escaped—me overseas, your Aunt Lena into her writing and your Aunt Sarah into whatever she's into—as soon as we could. God, Sarah—and Selena. You killed her, Quinn. She wouldn't have come back here and been on that flight if she hadn't come to get you."
"That's below the belt, Syd," Tam said as Quinn sat there, crushed. "He didn't kill her anymore than I hurt him when we sacked him in the Super Bowl and Kasmerek kicked him. Yes, we make choices. But the plane might not have gone down. Quinn might not have gotten a concussion. Things happen. Anyway, you forgot one thing about your relationship with your son. You were the one who got pregnant."
Now who was hitting below the belt, Quinn thought.
"Yes, I got pregnant," Syd said, stunned. "I made a mistake."
Here her voice quivered for one of the few times in Quinn's experience, but Syd quickly recovered as she looked at Chan. "And then I met a wonderful man who understood, who was willing to make a life with a woman who was pregnant with another man's child. That's no small thing."
"Sydney, they can't understand," Chan said, exhaling. "It's not like they could produce a child together."
"Maybe not," Tam said quickly, "but we can certainly father children and we can adopt. And we intend to once we're married. But I don't think we can before you set Quinn free, Sydney. Whether or not you two can forgive each other, he needs to know who and where his real father is. A man has a right to his identity, his whole identity. And I think at last this will set you free as well."
That night, as Quinn was prepared to drift off again alone, there was another knock on the door. It was Tam in nothing but a robe and a finger to the smile on his lips. He tossed off the robe, revealing himself fully alive to his passion, and slipped into bed.
"Obviously, I can't save this for Bali," he said. "Now you are mine at last."
"I think," Quinn said, falling into his arms, "that I was always yours as you were always mine."
They dozed and woke throughout the night, making sweet, tight, quiet love in their waking moments.
"Sex is always hard," Quinn said, panting as they faced each other, straining, their legs entwined, their bodies beaded with sweat yet quivering slightly, exposed to the air conditioning.
"Hard is a good thing," Tam said, laughing, shifting slightly inside Quinn.
"No, I mean, it's difficult, isn't it, not an easy thing to give yourself and receive in return."
"Uh, is there a football metaphor in this, Quinnie? Hey, lover, I'll go deep," and he planted a long, slow kiss on his mouth then turned Quinn on his back and thrust inside him.
In the morning, Quinn woke content in his lover's arms. Was there anything more delicious, he thought, snuggling next to Tam, than lying in bed with your lover, knowing you didn't have to get up for work? He reached for the sheet quickly, though, as the door opened. Tam had forgotten to lock it. Damn. Nemin. But she merely laughed while putting a finger to her lips as she gathered the scattered clothing into her laundry basket and just as gracefully and silently exited.
Tam will just have to shower with me and wear some of my clothes, Quinn thought, shifting in his arms with a smile on his face.
When they boarded the Garuda Airlines flight a few hours later, Tam handed Quinn a piece of paper from Sydney with a name, a lead that might hold the key to Quinn's past and their future.
Quinn shook as he put it in his left pocket and patted it.
"Are you traveling to Bali for business or pleasure?" the pretty stewardess in traditional dress said as she handed them hot hand towels in preparation for the breakfast after takeoff.
"Bit of both I think," Tam said, smiling.
He looked around, muttered, "Oh, hell," and as the plane took off, threaded his fingers through Quinn's.
Twenty-nine
If Jakarta were New York in July, Bali was New Orleans—or, better yet, Florida—in August. Quinn and Tam arrived mid-morning at the revamped Ngurah Rai International Airport in the capital city of Denpasar, where they were met by Pierre, the driver from the Grand Hyatt Bali in Nusa Dua.
Pierre was an amiable, talkative type—emphasis on talkative—who spoke perfect English. He peppered Quinn with questions about life in New York, which Pierre seemed to think was a cross between Home Alone 2 and The French Connection, and especially the nature of their visit.
"Business and pleasure," Tam said, smiling. Quinn thought he looked a little peaked after the plane ride. But he revived with a complimentary fruit cocktail on the balcony of one of the Grand Hyatt's fiery, red tile-roofed stucco villas, connected by a series of footpaths and footbridges that cascaded down to the Indian Ocean.
"Would you look at that," Tam said, watching the teal-colored water break foamy on the shore.
"So was it all worth it?" Quinn asked, standing on the balcony beside him, drink in hand.
"And then some," Tam said.
Their suite consisted of a large common area—kitchenette, living room, dining space—between two bedrooms with king-size beds and baths with showers and Jacuzzis.
"It's a shame that we're going to have to unmake two beds when we're only going to be using one," Tam said playfully, "you know, so no one's the wiser to what we're up to."
"But we could take turns," Quinn said, licking his lips, "my room for love in the afternoon…"
"And mine for steamy sex under the stars," Tam said, chasing Quinn into his bedroom. Tam fumbled with his iPhone, dialing up Martin Solveig's Ready 2 Go.
"Subtle, Tam," Quinn said, laughing. "Real subtle."
But he pumped up the volume and wriggled beneath him in anticipation as Tam tugged at the flies of their jeans. Was there anything Tam didn't do gracefully? Quinn thought, marveling at the way he could slip Quinn's jeans and Calvins down, caressing the curve of his butt as he trailed his fingers across his mossy groin and cupped his balls before stroking his cock upward and unrolling a condom downward. Taking Quinn's hand, Tam instructed him to do the same to him before he rested at the gateway to Quinn's pleasure.
It was at such moments that Quinn was his sexiest and happiest, relishing the tickling tease before the thrust and parry, when he could feel the skin at the tip of his shaft retracting and the vein behind it throbbing, and he didn't think he could take the pleasure and pressure anymore. It was always over too soon—no matter how skillful and athletic they were going about it, lightly tugging on each other's balls to hold back the floodtide of orgasm. The only consolation was that there was always the promise of next time.
"Was that what you would describe as a quickie?" Quinn said, resting on his lover's wildly beating heart.
"Think of it more as an appetizer with a fruit cocktail chaser," Tam said, reaching for his drink. "Let's hit the showers together and then the beach I've been hearing so much about."
But they didn't make it down to the beach until late afternoon thanks to a shower that echoed the rapture of an hour before.
"OK, that has to be an NFL record," Tam murmured as they shivered in each other's arms. "Swimming in the Indian Ocean is going to seem like nothing after this."
Ocean swimming—particularly Indian Ocean swimming—was, however, even more of a challenge than two titanic orgasms in one afternoon, Quinn thought. The Indian Ocean
may not be as big as the Atlantic or as vast as the Pacific, but it was deep—"tideless deep," to borrow a phrase from Henry James. I may be smaller than my sisters, she seemed to say in a whisper that grew to a roar, but I am mighty and mysterious. Quinn thought of the tsunami and all those souls on Malaysia Arilines' Flight 370, who rested beneath the ocean's deceptive waves. He watched fearfully as Tam swam against them, only to be turned back. He swam out after him and together they found themselves borne back to the shore on white foam, like a pair of Aphrodites rising from the sea.
Certainly, the other beachgoers looked at them appreciatively—Tam in his long black lace-up swim shorts, Quinn his negative image in white ones. At first, Quinn wondered if the other guests were staring at them, because they secretly intuited that they were a couple. Or maybe they somehow recognized who they were. But how stupid was that, Quinn thought, when those around them—Russians, Japanese, and Indians—were unlikely to have a real awareness of the NFL. No, people were glancing at them, Quinn finally realized, blushing, because theirs were easily the two best-looking bodies on the beach.
That didn't stop Russian grandpas with potbellies from wearing Speedos, however. Even the ladies—who could be counted on, Quinn assumed, as the more discerning, fashionable sex—favored itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny bikinis, forget the yellow polka dots, regardless of figure types.
"Maybe it's the place itself," Tam said as they strolled up a stone path to their villa. "There's a sensuality here I've never experienced before, a languor. You don't want anything to stand between the sun, sand, and sea and your bare skin."
They paused before a Hindu temple at the edge of the hotel property that was a study in filigree with soaring, dark brown wood spires and niches filled with gods and goddesses, limbs entwined in various gymnastic, Kama Sutra-style poses, the female figures' globular breasts and buttocks sculpted to bursting.
"And yet, here's a sign that says, 'No menstruating women may enter,'" Tam said. "Wonder how they'd feel about two gay men?"
"There's actually a pretty active gay scene here," Quinn said, "and plenty of gay 'weddings,' by which I mean you would have to get married somewhere else. As you've surmised, Bali's a mass of contradictions. There's no gay marriage and yet, plenty of ceremonies. Basically, they don't think in terms of gay and straight so much as married and unmarried. The big strike against us is that we're not hitched."
"Yet," Tam added. He looked at Quinn with a smile. "I think we're going to need another shower."
"Three for three," Tam announced triumphantly at dinner, twirling his spaghetti carbonara. "And we haven't even been here a full day." He considered a forkful of pasta. "I thought carbonara was made with prosciutto."
"It's some kind of beef substitute. There's no pork in a Muslim country," Quinn offered.
"Got it. No, it's delicious. You couldn't find better spaghetti carbonara in Philly or San Fran. I think the buffet is the second best thing about the trip so far."
Tam took two spoons and scooped a generous helping on a side dish for Quinn as they sat in a colonnaded pavilion by a pond filled with lizards, birds and fish.
"Eat up," Tam said. "We're going to need our strength if we're going to begin our search tomorrow. Where did you say we were off to?"
Kuta: It was a town about a half-hour drive from Nusa Dua and a world away from the wealthy tourism of the Grand Hyatt, with its yoga spa and village-like network of sleek shops selling $500 sarongs. To get to Kuta, you careened around jug handles and traffic circles enveloped in the dust of construction. Occasionally they yielded a marble like the ripped Ghatotkacha driving his equally well-muscled steeds into battle. As Pierre sped over the road and chatted away, country music blared from the radio—Pierre having decided that since Quinn and Tam were Americans, they must be country music fans—and Tam captured the hunky Ghatotkacha with his cell.
There were more such bodies to behold in the flesh at their destination. Kuta was where the kids from Perth on a shoestring budget hung out, their skin gleaming like the tin shops that collided with improbable portico-ed marble buildings on the main drag.
Kuta, Quinn knew, was also where anything went and you lived to make the rupiah today, for who knew what tomorrow would bring? So you pressed the flesh to close the sale, and you could not walk down the street but for the pressing merchants. Quinn worried how Tam would react, being stopped and touched every few feet, but he needn't have. Back home, no one was more used to people coming up to him, touching him, imploring him, even occasionally snipping a lock of his hair, as if he were a gridiron Ghatotkacha. On that demigod's home field, Tam just smiled or laughed as he and Quinn moved on, saying, "Thanks, but shopping later." He would allow nothing to dissuade them from their mission.
"I mean," he was saying, "how hard could it be to find someone named Tjok? That's an unusual name."
They were eating a vegetable, rice and meat dish at one of the local eateries. "It's chicken," Quinn had advised. "It's always chicken."
Tam considered a piece of meat he had speared, tasted it and inclined his head as if to say, "Good."
"And to answer your question, it's as if someone had written down the name John on a piece of paper in America. Tjok is a very common name here, and it's only the name of a guy who might lead us to my real father. Face it: This is a needle in a haystack."
"Maybe so but you don't give up before you've even started. When you're down 33-5, you don't throw in the towel. You dig in and start chipping away and that's what we have to do. Now we have a place, here, and a name. This place is not that big. Someone is bound to know or remember something."
They waited until the sun went down and hit the beach. That's where the "Kuta cowboys" plied their trade, lining the shore to service the rich, mostly European ladies—and, more discreetly, gentlemen—in search of a little adventure and sexual release. Most of the cowboys were married with wives who approved of their husbands' adventures in the sex trade as a way to earn extra Euros or even American dollars. There was no shame in "cowboying up" in a culture of such fluidity. But that didn't make it any easier for Quinn and Tam.
"We're looking for a guy who's my fiancé's father." The concept was met with confused stares, giggles, head-shaking and, once, even an offer of a child sex slave.
"Look," Tam said, the color rising in his face, "the last thing we would ever do is harm an innocent and if we see or hear of anything like that we're reporting it to the authorities."
Not long after that encounter, he and Quinn were approached by two English women who were friends and looked like bookends, if bookends were short, lumpish creatures with rounded calves, chicken-wing arms, steel-wool bobs, and whose most distinguishing characteristic was a nondescript doughy quality.
"How much?" one said as they both smiled, then laughed.
"How much for what?" Tam said.
"Ooh, coy. I like that. You know. How much for a bit of fun with what's in there?"
She reached over and tugged at the waistband of Tam's shorts, revealing smooth, golden skin and a hint of man-fur that sent a current through Quinn's cock.
But he looked at Tam with a horror that he could only imagine matched Tam's own.
"No, ladies, I'm afraid you have the wrong idea. We're tourists like you."
"Ooh, tourists looking to earn a little pocket change perhaps?"
"We have jobs," Quinn said softly. "We're football players."
"Did you hear that, Audra? Footballers. Which team are you with, luv? I don't think we've seen you play Manchester U."
Actually, Quinn thought, Tam had appeared at Wembley Stadium in London when the Miners and the Steers had faced off in an early-season game. Somehow, he didn't think the two women had caught that one.
"No, we're American football players," Quinn corrected.
"No doubt that's how you got those big muscles," Audra's friend offered, sidling up to him. Audra clearly preferred Tam, who smiled and said, "Look, ladies, Quinn and I are lovers. In fact, we're going to be married."
"Congratulations," Audra said. "When's the big day?"
"We haven't set one yet," Tam said. "But we're committed to each other."
"That's wonderful. But while we're all here, may we watch? We'd be happy to pay. Think of the fun of it, Gretchen. It would be like live gay porn."
Thirty
"Well, I think we've hit a new low," Quinn said.
They were at The Mulia, one of Bali's newer hotels, later that night, sipping Cosmos and eating shrimp tempura in a blue room the size of half a football field, with huge, cream-colored egg-beater chandeliers, floor-to-ceiling niches filled with cinnabar jars and at least nine stations serving different kinds of cuisine. The dessert station alone had a separate room.
"Really? I think we're making progress," Tam said.
"Progress? We were mistaken for child molesters and hustlers."
"Exactly, in that order. Being seen as a prostitute is a lot better than being thought of as a child molester. We're getting closer to our goal of finding your father. We keep putting ourselves out there, we're going to meet someone who knows something."
"We keep putting ourselves out there and we're not going to need the NFL, because we'll be in a whole other league, if you get my drift."
Just then, something caught Quinn's eye—or rather someone.
"Oh my God, it's the ladies from the beach."
He and Tam tried to shrink in their booth but the women spotted them, trailed by two men—clearly their husbands—who had put two and two together, come up with five and were none too happy about it.
"What are you boys doing here?"
"Audra, how do you know these men?" her husband said.
"Oh, we met your wives while we were all shopping in Kuta," Tam said, smiling at Quinn as they rose to kiss the ladies on the cheek and shake hands with their husbands.
"Ladies, did you find those Rolex watches you were looking for? Oops, I hope I haven't spoiled the surprise for your hubbies?"
By the time Tam finished weaving the fiction of the shopping excursion and encounter, making it clear that he and Quinn were a couple, the men were slapping them on the back and inviting them to visit whenever they were in the UK.
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