Ice Cream Man

by Charles Puccia

  With Joe’s help, Ellen leaned over and kissed Vinnie on both cheeks.

  As she stepped back, to her surprise Joe kissed Vinnie too, as near to his lips as possible without disturbing the tubes—in full view of Big John.

  Ellen looked up, frozen—she expected her husband to grab Joe by his throat. But Big John just stared at his son. Being gay didn’t matter at this moment. What mattered was possibly losing Vinnie forever. Not the kind of loss they’d suffered over the past seven years, but the forever kind of loss: eternal and evermore.

  “What can I do to help?” John said. He looked to Joe, then to his wife.

  At that moment, Ben entered the room. His hostility to Big John was palpable. “I’m Ben Hausen,” he said to John, “and this is my condo. I’m this man’s gay friend.” Ben pointed to Joe.

  Big John extended his hand to Ben for a handshake. With hesitation, Ben extended his own hand—then applied pressure that stopped short of cracking Big John’s fingers. A grimace on John’s face was followed a small grunt. Ben’s vise-like grip caused Big John’s eyes to tear up.

  Ellen smiled, thinking that her husband was overcome with the same gratitude she felt. But the pain traveled from Big John’s hand to his forearm and shoulder.

  In a deep voice, Big John said, “Mr. Hausen, I think we’ve gotten off to a misunderstanding.”

  “How so, Mr. Briggs?”

  From the couch, Joe jumped up. For him, this was an all too familiar scene: an angry AIDS patient’s friends confronting a non-supportive family member—often at the funeral service.

  “Ben, honey, let go of Mr. Briggs’s hand. Go to your happy place. Time to relax those muscles. I don’t have time for another patient, do I?”

  Ben stared coldly into Big John’s eyes, but he let go.

  “Sweetie, follow my tush outside.”

  Dan followed Ben and Joe out of the room. He knew Vinnie’s parents needed time alone, with themselves and their son. And Dan needed time, too, to collect his thoughts before Ginny’s return from her out-of-town meeting. If the Briggses could talk, then he and Ginny could too. Their future together depended on it.

  Chapter 38

  Technique

  Silhouetted rose walls and light lavender baseboards and insets gave the Livorno bedroom a sensual feel. Dan lay on the king-size bed; the extra mattress space was a reminder that he was alone. The light taupe ceiling became a portrait of good times past. Years before a different bedroom with a smoky-white ceiling had been a special day: Dan’s fantasy day, the day his desire renewed his insecurity.

  From the beginning, Ginny had scripted their activities. But that day Dan had decided he would rather die than lose Ginny. On that day, his jealousy was ignited.

  He had watched Ginny on campus; had seen her demeanor around men. He sought clues that she was being seduced. He watched. And he’d quiz Ginny if they hadn’t been together for several days—who did she meet, where did she go.

  But on that day, Ginny had had enough. She gave him an ultimatum: he would stop these queries, or she’d leave him. Dan’s quizzing stopped., but not his jealousy.

  That day marked the beginning of both his dream and his never-ending nightmare.

  ****

  Four Years Before

  Her direction was strong and clear: “Dan, go to the bathroom first and prepare.”

  After he had relieved himself—as much from nerves as from a full bladder—he undressed. He stared into the mirror and thought he needed a shave. With the fragrant rose soap on Ginny’s bathroom counter, Dan lathered his upper body. He poured mouthwash direct from the bottle into his mouth. He gave a quick flex and was pleased with his shape. He sucked in his stomach muscles, and a six-pack formed—the result of his daily swims. He knew he was in shape.

  Dan removed his pants and jockey briefs, folded them, and set them on a stool. His fastidiousness prompted a quick wash of his private parts. Then he waited, a hand in front. He was unable to shake his shyness, even when it came to intimacy with his girlfriend.

  The word “girlfriend” sparked a self-interrogation. Is Ginny my girlfriend? Will she always be mine? Years later the word “wife” would replace “girlfriend,” but otherwise the questions would remain unchanged—and unanswered.

  Naked and wary, he heard Ginny’s call. He knocked on the bathroom door and heard a cheerful laugh. “Come out, I know you’re there.”

  The dim bedroom lights highlighted Ginny’s hair. She was like a painting, Dan thought—a lady waiting for her courtier. Dan halted and raised both hands to his chest. Ginny was lying on her side, one arm under her head, half-turned to him.

  From her position, she could see Dan’s reflection in the wall mirror: his back muscles, the movement of his muscular ass. She smiled as she watched Dan’s large penis mount up his cascading abs. His chest mushroomed into round platters that stretched across shoulders meant for a saddle.

  Blood filled Dan’s facial capillaries as he spied Ginny’s heart-shaped ass. He moved behind her, gazing at her spine and long neck. With one arm stretched outward, he stepped forward until he touched the silk sheets.

  Dan knelt at the bed’s edge. He shifted his body sideways and rested his head on the mattress, his ear listening to the bedsprings, his eyes anchored to the curve of Ginny’s spine. His hand trembled as he placed his index and middle fingers on the base of Ginny’s neck. He was careful not to disturb a single vertebra. His slow-moving fingers rode down Ginny’s upper spine the way small boys roll toy trains along a floor, each vertebra arch a trestle. His head inched closer to Ginny’s railway spine as his fingers slid and Ginny giggled. There was a momentary pause when he reached Ginny’s spinal base before his fingers crossed her alpine ass. Up one side, down the other, he reached the summit and abandoned his finger train in favor of a palm full of the mounded flesh. He squeezed, kneaded, gave himself proof that this was real.

  “Ouch.”

  Her sound had no effect on Dan. He had lifted himself up to place his face at the top of the bubble so he could peer into the valley. He kissed Ginny’s hard ass, scraping her skin with his rough tongue. He wanted to consume her. He desired her in ways that should have made him blush, but the heat of his desire burned away all inhibition.

  That was the moment: the woman he’d never lose. Could never lose.

  Ginny’s face pushed into the pillow and she raised up on her knees. Dan’s fingers pressed deeper, seeking her vagina, his forearm lodged between the cheeks of her sky-high ass. His thighs spanned her lower legs as he straddled Ginny’s buttocks.

  Sweat perfumed the room. His pulsating penis sought entry, yet the pleasure of his hand and eyes on Ginny’s body restrained him. Dan lowered his head to guide his hands; they slid down Ginny’s thighs to widen her ass. With gentle exploration, his arm forded her anus as his fingers ran across her perineum to her wet labia. He wanted to have and hold forever this perfect female form.

  Extending his fingers, Dan reached into Ginny’s vulva. Her moan encouraged him. He wanted to comply, but his penis throbbed and the cremaster muscles tugged his aching balls upward. He rose to mount, but for Ginny’s instruction:

  “Turn me over. I want to see you.”

  Ginny turned face up. Dan’s mouth opened at the sight of the firm breasts. They disarmed Dan, their perfection, sculpted, and defying gravity. They would not sag with age, these bear claw breasts and suckle-sweet nipples.

  That was a night of acrobatics—and Ginny’s incantation; Dan should have paid closer attention. “Make them bulge. Make them big and go high.” Dan knew the drill. He lifted off his elbows, his arms parallel to his shoulders, and flexed a double-bicep pose.

  “Closer. I want to feel them.”

  His powerful abdominals held him at a forty-five-degree angle. Ginny took hold of his arms, circumscribing his mounded biceps, releasing her sibilant sh… sh… sh. Dan knew that Ginny wanted him to have the strength of Hercules. His bulky shape had satisfied her. The same mass had cost him an Olympian swim
tryout and denied him a first-place college trophy—his bulk impeded him in water but had propelled him to Ginny.

  He knew that Ginny’s admiration of his masculine physique was different from that of other women. When she touched his sinew, it felt like she was painting trim.

  Dan had simply not understood how much this mattered.

  “Let’s play rough.”

  Following her words, Ginny’s next move had surprised Dan. An index finger extended, Ginny sledded between Dan’s perineum to his scrotum, and then again; on the third slide, she rested her fingers on his ass crack. Dan jumped when her middle finger ever so slightly pushed into his anus. Pain was followed by stimulation. Dan groaned as she slid in and out, each exit accompanied by a touch of his balls. Ginny kept up her rambling sex talk, but Dan heard only consonants and vowels. She massaged his testicles and his ego.

  From her single digit, Ginny spread her fingers, and her open palm cupped Dan’s balls in a juggler’s grasp. Then, without warning, she pushed them into Dan’s upper cavity—and released them to parachute down. She reversed her action, now pulling his testicles down, a vine plucking. This tugging swing nearly rendered Dan unconscious. His penis became harder than it had ever been.

  When coitus began, Ginny said it felt like being beneath an oil rig, he pumped so hard. She had hissed “more… bigger”, her ass rising upward.

  ****

  Now alone and sleepless, Dan’s eyes moved from the ceiling, and his head turned to face the wall mirror. How naive. I should have known. His future mother-in-law had told him about Ginny’s sthenolagnia. But the warning had been forgotten the minute Ginny had him in bed.

  Dan didn’t need to look—he knew he was rock hard in his darkened bedroom of silence, loneliness, and memory. He flushed red. On another occasion, he might have masturbated to release himself, but not tonight. He would not defile this memory, perhaps all that might remain of him and Ginny. He had become hostage to her stupid folly, her stethy obsession, which had only grown when she’d met her muscle-bound trainer, Ben. And Dan’s uncontrolled jealousy had contributed to the problem. Of course, now he knew that Ben would never have taken advantage of Ginny.

  Mental exhaustion overcame Dan, and his penis flagged. He felt depressed. Tomorrow he would know his future: either he and Ginny would stay together, or he would be stuck with memory sex and a life alone. Dan’s depression rendered a fitful sleep. His dream mixed bedroom scenes, muscular bodybuilders, cheaters taking his job, and scandalous accusations.

  Chapter 39

  Pleasure and Pain

  Throughout lunch, Dan reviewed his checklist. Ginny’s flight had been delayed, which had given him extra time to put his thoughts down on paper. But now she sat with Dan at the kitchen table, holding her coffee mug.

  Dan stared at his list.

  Item one. Vinnie’s move to Ben’s condo.

  Item two. Fired from his job.

  Item three. Improved marriage and sex.

  The third item was his quandary. Start with Paris? Which? His failure or the fiasco? Their marriage had gone south before his screwup; even before Bill Barrington and Linda Lords had screwed him. He and Ginny needed to solve their issues or they were as finished as his job.

  While Ginny sipped only coffee, Dan ate yogurt, chicken, and a protein mix—Ben’s nutrition regiment for him. He decided to start with Vinnie’s arrangement at Ben’s condo.

  Ginny stopped him, asking for details. She wished she hadn’t. She was upset to learn about Vinnie’s teenage beating, his banishment, his mother’s guilt. She was skeptical of Vinnie’s father’s bedside change of heart. Could people change so quickly?

  Placing his dishes in the sink, Dan moved on.

  “I was fired from DV&N.”

  “What! Oh my god, what happened? Were you arrested? Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I wasn’t arrested.”

  Ginny touched Dan’s hand. “If there’s no criminal charge, why were you fired? Didn’t Gary promise to settle this internally? Do they believe Linda?”

  After a sigh, Dan began a long, monotone description of his meeting with Gary and Myron Rosenberg, including the two options and the deal he had struck for Vinnie’s private care.

  “After six months we won’t be able to afford the mortgage,” Ginny said.

  Dan paced the kitchen. Time for item three. He searched the wine cabinet, removed a bottle, and poured two glasses. Ginny sipped once while Dan’s loud swallows masked the sixty-cycle hum of the kitchen appliances.

  He emptied his glass and poured another.

  He finished the second and poured a third.

  “What’s going on, Dan?”

  “Us.”

  “Us? What does that mean?”

  “It’s time we face facts. We’re coming apart. We have to figure this out.”

  Now it was Ginny who drank all her wine and refilled her glass. Then she moved to the living room couch, where she tucked her legs under. Dan followed and sat next to her, bringing a second bottle of wine.

  “You’re right,” Ginny said. “It’s me, and I admit it. Everything has changed since Paris.”

  “And that was my fault. I acted like a shit, a coward.”

  “Well, that triggered a big decline, but it doesn’t explain everything. Something’s been bothering me for a long time, and I think I know what it is.”

  “Do you not love me? Is it your Bloomingdale’s Paris job? Take it. I’ll come along and be the house hubby. It might be easier for me to find work in Europe. I’m sure to get something, even if not as cutting edge as DV&N.”

  “No, it’s not my Paris job. And of course I love you. How could you have doubts?”

  He did, but he wasn’t about to explain.

  Ginny unfolded her legs and placed them over Dan’s lap, her hand on his arm. “This is going to sound… well, I don’t know how it’ll sound, but you have to trust me, it will help. I want to invite Ben over again.”

  “To thank him and apologize. I was thinking that too. But how is that relevant?”

  “No, not to thank him—or, not just to thank him. To help me… us. Something happened last time. And… we need to try again, to solve my problem. Maybe it’d be good for you and Ben, I don’t know. The truth is, I need help, and this is it. I’ve been thinking about Ben’s remark—you know, how Davis told him he needed to sate his desire? Well, I feel the same.”

  Dan’s voice was cold. “Davis died.”

  “Come on, that’s different. The point is, Davis knew he had to immerse himself in order to control his obsession. I feel the same.”

  “You’re talking a threesome!” Dan’s voice rose. “Didn’t you learn anything? Ben won’t agree. And Ben’s gay. And I’m not having sex with a man! How would you participate anyway? And what about Ben’s feelings?”

  Ginny removed her hand from Dan’s arm. He pulled back and Ginny pushed away. She gulped more wine.

  “Listen, Dan, I’ve learned new facts. Can you stop arguing for a minute?”

  Ginny explained how she believed the encounter would integrate their sexual and emotional needs. Her mother had provided medical studies on sthenolagnia. They were sparse, from colloquia mostly, unpublished, but enough. And Ginny had investigated online various psychological researches into human desires.

  “Your parents approve of this idea?” Dan was shocked.

  “No, I haven’t told them. I don’t ask permission from my parents—or anyone. I don’t need a counselor.” Ginny had decided not to mention her discussions with Betsy and Sarah.

  “What about me? My feelings don’t matter either?”

  “Of course they do. And that’s why I’m asking you for your opinion on how to do this.”

  “We don’t. That’s my opinion.” Dan’s jealous anger ate at his stomach. His cheeks sucked in and his eyebrows dipped like closing curtains. With one hand on his head, he rubbed out thoughts.

  Ginny raised both hands to her face, barriers to her words. “I’m asking, how do
we involve Ben? The best arrangement.”

  “Best arrangement for what? Us masturbating while Ben flexes?”

  “No, Dan. I’ve heard your morning grunts. You don’t need any help with that.”

  Dan’s face reddened. “You know why? Because we don’t have sex. But I’ve never cheated on you. I’ve been faithful!”

  Ginny stiffened, folded her arms. “Me too, Dan.” She softened her voice. “Me too.”

  Neither moved, aware that their forced statements should have been unnecessary.

  Ginny unfolded her arms. “I’m suggesting this precisely to improve our sex, repair our relationship, and save our marriage.”

  Dan’s voice modulated. “And how? Has Ben said he wants to have sex with me? You’re pimping me out so you can feel his muscles?”

  Ginny’s voice rose. “Dan, you can be truly stupid. Don’t you want to save our marriage?”

  There was not a twitch on Dan’s face, but his eyes were like lasers piercing Ginny.

  “You know I don’t want to have sex with Ben,” Ginny said, “nor for you to either. This is my fantasy, maybe my lifelong desire. I felt something the last time, before we fought. I felt a breakthrough was about to happen.”

  “Speak English. What do you want?”

  Ginny tapped her leg. “Let’s start with your biggest worry. The only penis inside of me will be yours. I love you, not Ben. Now listen again. I love you. And Ben will not be putting his penis into you, not if I have anything to say about it. This is to fix my problem, my… obsession. There, I’ve admitted it.”

  Tears rolled down Dan’s face. “Ginny, I can’t live without you. I didn’t sleep last night. I felt so alone.” Dan choked on his words. “I love you so much. Without you, I could never have survived all that’s happened. Ben, too. We couldn’t have a more supportive friend.”

  A tear slid down Dan’s cheek and was wiped away by Ginny’s finger. She brushed his lips with a quick kiss.

  “This is my fantasy, but it will bring us together, trust me. Ben’s physical presence gives me passion, like watching a movie with a hot sex scene.”