Daddy Issues

by Seth King

  “You’ll be fine,” he says. “Being in the closet is about hiding your light. Coming out of the closet is about deciding what to do with all of that new light. Just shine for people. It’s only been, what, a few years? You seem like you’re doing great.”

  “Yeah. I guess. Just the fact that I’m here, around my family, with a male date – I never expected that in a million years.”

  “And they’re all cool with it?” he asks.

  “Well, Aunt Marjorie said I was promoting the gay agenda, but…she’s Aunt Marjorie, so who cares?”

  “Exactly,” he laughs. “The old ‘gay agenda’ line. Sheesh, talk about trading places…if only she could’ve died instead, and left Sara…”

  I laugh back at him. It makes me feel warm inside that we have so much shared history, that we know so many of the same loved ones.

  Then I remind myself that all of this is because he was my stepfather for two years.

  “Say,” he continues. “When you came out, why didn’t you think of me? Why didn’t you contact me? I could’ve helped, you know.”

  “Honestly…it just wasn’t about you. And we’ve all just kind of learned to stay far away from my mom’s life, and the players in it. Things change quickly. So it was never about you, I just…I guess I block all her stuff out, just to protect myself.”

  “Ah. Makes sense.”

  We listen to the lapping waves.

  “What are you really thinking?” he asks soon. I swallow my lip.

  “About…how alone I’ve felt lately.”

  “Huh? You brought someone with you.”

  “I know. I feel alone when I’m with him, too.”

  He looks confused. “Well…I’m sorry to hear that. Why are you thinking about that now, though?”

  “Because I like being around you. Right now, I feel like…myself. Or closer to it, at least.”

  I see him shiver.

  “Do you feel the same?” I ask, and finally he looks at me.

  “Yes. You’re in my head, Eliot. Already. Regardless of everything else…”

  I melt for him, right there. He is perfect. He makes me feel horny, but…emotionally horny. The kind of horny where I just want to smile at his face and tell him things I would never tell anyone else.

  But soon I look away. “But…”

  “But what?”

  “At the end of the day, the fact is still there: this isn’t fair to my mom.”

  “No comment on that one,” he laughs sharply, looking away.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Eliot, you know I love your mom in a way, but…she’s not exactly a saint.”

  “What?”

  “Actually, she wasn’t even a great mom to you, as much as I hate to say it. All anyone ever does for her, still, to this day, is make excuses for her behavior and cover up for her. I can’t count how many times Sara would come over to apologize for her and clean up her messes. At a certain point it becomes a certain kind of…well, enablement.”

  “Robert. That’s crazy. I don’t make excuses for her.”

  “Then why did you choose to live with your dad?”

  I stutter. I still don’t know how to talk about that. She never forgave me for choosing him, and it’s still an awkward point of contention in our relationship. “Hey, that’s – that’s complicated. My mom is – you know, moody, and her life wasn’t very stable, so…”

  He raises a hand to me. “Eliot. You don’t have to explain everything to me. I’m not anti-anyone. But you’ve fathered your own mother for long enough. Stop babying her and think about yourself for a minute.”

  “Myself?”

  “I mean, sure. After all she’s put you through, you deserve it. If your main motivation here is sparing your mom’s feelings at the expense of your own…well, honestly speaking, she never gave you that same respect in return.”

  That’s when the boat finally speeds up – and at just the right time, too.

  I exhale and lean back as the water sprays my face. The trees and hills rush by, and I smile over at Robert, whose tanned shoulders are shining in the sunlight. Within seconds I am calm again, totally calm. If I could freeze this moment, if I could just stop us right now, I would. This moment feels worthy of remembering.

  The boat turns. Uncle Ted is going too fast, though, and I yelp as the tube tips further and further until finally flipping over, tumbling us out into the water face-first. I’m plunged deep into the inky water, and as I rise again I hit Robert’s knees. I’m trying not to laugh when I surface and realize we’ve both come up together, under the overturned tube, completely hidden from the world.

  “What are the odds?” I laugh, looking around in the darkness.

  “Shh,” he says, putting a finger against my lips.

  “Oh. Why?”

  “Because I want to do something I’ve wanted to do all morning.”

  He leans in and plants a kiss on my closed lips. I don’t even open my mouth, but it is the single most erotic thing anyone has ever done to me. If the boat full of people probably twenty feet away knew about what we were doing…

  Regardless of how technically right or wrong it is, I know it’s still shocking. Perhaps that’s why I can’t get enough of it. But is it deeper than the shock value? It definitely feels deeper. Fathoms deep, actually.

  But how does he view me? And why do I give a damn?

  “Let me do something, too,” I say, taken away by the moment. Then, underwater, I rub my hand up against his cock. And shit – it really is thick. This thing is like a loaf of bread. Lord help whatever guy has to take this thing regularly…how they’d walk correctly every day, I have no idea…

  “Eliot,” he says, his breath wet and hot against my face.

  “Yes?”

  “I can’t stay away from you. Do you feel the same?”

  “I feel…I feel…”

  Just then I hear everyone start to call for us. Oh, God, they probably think we’re dead. So before I head underwater to resurface and tell them I’m fine, I grab at his dick one last time and smile.

  “Talk to me,” he says. “Tell me. Are you going to stay away, or no?”

  Instead of answering, I duck underwater. But as I start swimming back for the boat, it settles into my chest with a terrifying sureness:

  I won’t be able to stay away from Robert Glazer any more than the windblown waves can stay away from the pebbled lakeshore.

  Robert Glazer

  So there’s a problem: Eliot and I are bouncing off each other like electrons.

  Last night should’ve thrown me off. The thing on the boat should have, too. It did the opposite. I can’t escape him. This gigantic home has become a prison, and I am failing at my one mission: to stay away from my former stepson. (The house is so big it actually has a name, Woodhouse Lawn, which sounds like a cemetery, but whatever.) Eliot is obviously trying to stay away, too, but we keep encountering each other. First thing after the boat ride, I went to the dock house, but he was just getting there – so I turned the other way. An hour later I tried to join the aunts for a snack, but he was just entering the kitchen to raid the fridge. I even tried the third-floor balcony, and bumped into him in the hallway. I kept my eyes off him, but soon I won’t be able to stop myself. Soon, something more will happen here…

  In any event, I feel restless and horny and unsettled, and soon I realize I need to work out. When I am next to Eliot, all my worries fade away – it just feels so right. And then as soon as he leaves, they all come crashing back in a rush of guilt and shame. No, maybe “shame” isn’t a good word – I’m not ashamed of wanting Eliot Prince. I didn’t live in the darkness of the closet for over two decades just to start feeling shame for my feelings now. I am just afraid of what that desire would mean for my life.

  And his.

  Alcohol and exercise are the only things that calm me – well, besides sex, I guess – and so I pound into the gym that Sara had built for her staff…and then freeze. Mary Kate is already here.


  I turn to leave.

  “No,” she says, sweaty-faced. “I won’t ruin your session. Just get in here. I’m almost done.”

  So I listen – I cower in there and start lifting the first weights I find.

  “So. How have you been?” she asks. “For real.”

  “Good. Really. I’m good.”

  “I can see that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You look better than ever,” she tells me, just like last night.

  “I don’t know about that. How are you and Rick doing?”

  She takes a sharp breath.

  “What?”

  “There are…issues,” she says. “But I didn’t come here to think about that. Even though I might spill tonight…”

  “What?”

  “Never mind,” she huffs as she steps up and down on a platform. “Forget it.”

  “Okay, then. And…how’s Eliot?” I ask as coolly as I can. I steal a look to make sure she doesn’t suspect anything. I don’t think she does.

  “That’s a whole different thing. I don’t know. I hope he’ll be okay in the end. He’s so resilient, but sometimes I worry…”

  “About?”

  “Ugh, never mind. I’ve got it covered.”

  She turns away, but soon she turns back. “Hey. Maybe you can have some insight. Do you think he’s…okay?”

  “What do you mean? Okay in what sense?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Robert. We live in North Carolina, not Manhattan. I don’t pretend to understand what he deals with all the time. People in his own family look down on him for something he can’t change. It might not be so easy for him – I don’t know. We don’t talk about it – I’m always afraid I’ll stick my foot in my mouth, like always. But I know it’s hard. Remember when those guys leaned out of the car and called you a ‘faggot?’ I saw you tagged in a post about it, years and years ago.”

  I flinch at the word. “Yeah. Hmm. I don’t get that vibe from him,” I say soon. “Honestly, a good foundation at home can help with ninety percent of that stuff. That’s why I never accepted myself, personally, because I’d never been accepted by my parents. The best thing you can do is just do what you’ve always done – step aside and sort of quietly show him you’re fine with him. You did well in that regard, Mary Kate. He doesn’t seem as…conflicted as many guys are. People can say many things about you, sure, but you were never homophobic.”

  “Aw,” she blushes. “At least…I think.”

  I smile at her and look away. In a way, Mary Kate has been the closest woman to me in my life besides my sister, and even my sister told me she “doesn’t approve of my lifestyle choices, but loves me anyway.” But I’ve only gotten to this place with Mary Kate through years of delicate maneuvering, and I want to stay this way – but it’s precarious. She was a mess during the first weeks after the divorce, and she can tip back into that mode very easily. One little thing could send her back into chaos.

  And this thing between Eliot and me…well, it’s not “little” at all.

  “Isn’t it funny?” she asks soon, abandoning her workout.

  “What?”

  “You and I. We were just kids. We made such a mess. I get pregnant as a teenager, then have to deal with it all on my own, then accidentally marry a gay man…”

  “Hey,” I try to laugh. “You were dressed well during those years, weren’t you? You had a fashion consultant at your beck and call every morning.”

  “True. I was. He just wouldn’t have sex with me.”

  “True again.”

  We both laugh.

  “Hey,” she says, frowning. “There’s something I never really asked you.”

  “Yes?”

  “Um. It sounds simple, but…if you were gay…well, why did you marry me?”

  I let out a long breath. “God, that’s complicated.”

  “We have time.”

  I stand a little taller. For a moment the shape of her face reminds me of Eliot, and despite myself I smile. “Okay. The thing is…well, you have to be inside the head of a gay man to really understand it. Especially in the South. When I first started realizing what I was, I was horrified of it. Petrified. So was everyone else. I knew my family would turn away, I thought society would laugh me out of town…so you start to do anything you can to avoid admitting the truth. You tell yourself that if you just try to fit in, try to do what everyone else does and settle down with a girl and ‘be normal,’ that little flame inside you will just go out. But it doesn’t. It just grows. Oxygen deprivation doesn’t kill it. It just makes you more desperate for air. Soon I was consumed, and it got to a point where I knew I was going to die if I didn’t confront it, once and for all.”

  “So that dinner from hell was…”

  “Me confronting it, I guess. Just in the worst and most dramatic way possible. Sorry.”

  She waves me off. “Eh, water under the bridge. Not the first time I’ve been dumped in public, after all.”

  I laugh, but that’s when I know my limit for chitchat has been surpassed. I still feel weird about what I did, on some level.

  Then an idea comes to me. “Hey. What are your views on Eliot’s dating life, in particular?”

  “You mean David? He’s…okay. I don’t know. Whatever.”

  “The whole thing seems a bit…odd. What do you think he’ll do next?”

  “There’s a can of worms,” she says. “God, he’s already bankrupting Rick and me with undergrad, and now he says he wants another degree. Half the time I just want to tell him to go down to a country club and find a rich older man. Just kidding, but not really.”

  This time, I am laughing so hard, I really do have to leave. I feel so strange, I don’t know how else to react. If only she knew…

  I kiss her on the forehead like a brother and head into the small bathroom for a shower. It doesn’t calm me, though. After my shower, I head back out into a small side hallway – and there’s Eliot, looking like he’s just finished a jog, heading into the gym.

  I turn red and look away.

  To be honest, I’m not in the headspace for this. The talk with Mary Kate has me thrown, and I need a breather. Can’t the universe give me a break from this guy?

  But on second thought, the flush from the sun on his arms and chest reminds me that I won’t be able to resist this guy, anyway. He looks better every time I see him. And that’s not an easy feat.

  “Oh,” I say awkwardly. He’s in those filmy jogger pants everyone wears now, and his cock is hanging down, and to the left.

  God, I shouldn’t even be noticing that…

  Eliot finally makes eye contact. The scenes from the gay club bathroom flash in my head, but obviously, we’re still in day mode, and neither of us know how to address that whole thing yet. “Hey. I need to bench press real quick. Can you spot me?”

  I glance through the window into the gym. Mary Kate is gone.

  “Um, sure…”

  I follow him back into the gym, trying to ignore how sexy he looks. This obviously proves impossible. His dick sweat – is that a thing, dick sweat? – is growing down his leg by the minute, and I just want to rip off his joggers and have my way with him.

  So instead I clear my throat. In my head, we are just two regular strangers, working out together and having a chat.

  “So. Um. Last night was interesting,” I say as he starts stretching. “So was the tube ride.”

  He throws me a look. “Interesting?”

  “Interesting.”

  A prickle of sweat forms at the back of my neck. Mary Kate could walk in and wonder what’s going on between us, after we just had that heart-to-heart. David could walk in and hit the roof and do…well, God only knows what. This is dangerous on many levels.

  But something in Eliot’s eyes keeps pulling me back. So I clear my throat again. “Where’s David, by the way?”

  He flashes me a fake smile. “So glad you mentioned that! Such a pleasant subject.”

 
“Oh. Sorry. Won’t ask.”

  Our eyes meet in the wall mirror. I look away.

  But I keep getting drawn back. He’s the one who invited me in here, so he obviously feels the same.

  “Tell me,” I say soon, “about something. About your dating history before him.”

  “Well,” he says. “I don’t really have one. There were people here and there, but I’m not super experienced. I’ve only been out for three years, remember?”

  “Oh. Good point.”

  “And we-”

  He looks up at me and meets my eyes again. “Hey. What are you staring at?”

  I blush and look away – I didn’t even know I was looking at his cock again. “Oh, um, I’m sorry, it’s just…”

  “…Yes?”

  Finally I motion down at his leg. The way he’s crouching, his dick is clearly visible against it.

  But instead of freaking out, he slowly looks back up at me. My heart pounds as his eyes open wider.

  “Ah. Do you like that?” he asks, and ever-so-slowly, I nod. Jesus, this sexual little world is enveloping around us again already…

  “I do,” I murmur.

  “What are you going to do about it, then?”

  My pulse thunders. He’s really getting a little bolder, and I like it. “I…don’t know. I’ve had trouble with respecting boundaries lately…”

  His face breaks into a smug smile. “Who said the borders were closed off, though?”

  And that’s when the door opens. Both of us turn around at the same time. And whoop-de-do, it’s David.

  Eliot Prince

  I stare at my ex-boyfriend as I stand there, clearly aroused, next to my former stepfather.

  “Hi!”

  “El – Eliot,” he says, a little faintly. “Um, why are you…why is your face so red? What are you guys doing?”

  “Oh,” I say, setting down my weight and walking over. “I was just working out and he came in. What’s up?”

  He looks from me to Robert, then back at me. “Um. You weren’t texting back, and your mom wanted me to find you.”

  “She did?”

  “Yeah. She wants…dinner. Us. You, me, and her, I mean. At the Southern-style place at the bottom of the mountain.”