Never Enough

by Alexandra Caluen

  Dana laughed. “No kidding? I love a good romance novel. Rory and I have a keeper shelf up in the loft.”

  “Do you read the dirty parts to each other?”

  “Yes we do. So Victor is doing some time with the therapist, huh.”

  “Well.” Andy ate a cookie. “We almost had another fight because he wouldn’t stop apologizing. I was like, dude, I was every bit as bad with my silent treatment. You forgive me? Okay, well I forgive you. He’s trying to get to the bottom of it. We’re talking a lot.”

  “Still getting jiggy, I presume.”

  “Oh my God.” Andy’s expression was eloquent.

  Dana snickered. “Back at the beginning with me and Rory, when I wasn’t working full-time, it was so great. We could fool around and then, like, stay in bed. Talking or napping or listening to music.”

  “That’s exactly what it’s like. We have so much time. We’re still kind of looking around going, don’t we have something we have to do? And we don’t! We have all this shit going on, but absolutely none of it is required!

  It’s fucking bizarre!” Dana was giggling. “Anyway yes. We’re having a lot of great sex. Poor Loretta.” Dana cracked up. “But we’re also having these hours of kissing each other and holding each other, and there’s no hurry. It’s never like, let’s get to the main event because ten minutes from now we owe somebody something. It is sensational.” He drank some coffee, ate another cookie. “You changed the colors in here.”

  “We had the red and pink look for a long time.”

  “It looks almost underwater now. Moody. Are those the same

  chandeliers?” A cluster of small ones over the dining table, all painted in shades of blue and green.

  “Yeah, we told Lucy what we wanted to do and she said cool, I’ll come get them. By the time the new drapery was done, they were ready. When Rory saw the pearls and shit she swooned a little.”

  “Our girl is a sensualist at heart.”

  “Oh yes she is. So.” Dana ate a cookie. “I presume you actually do have ten thousand projects going.”

  “Pretty much, yeah. Still waiting for you girls to tell me what Shakespeare characters you’re doing.”

  “Well, what are you doing?”

  “Antonio and Bassanio. That’s one reason for the hair situation.” Dana laughed again. Andy was grinning. “He came up with the staging in about five seconds. I was sitting there going yep, sounds perfect, okay. It’s going to be sexy as fuck for the Bassanio line, and full heartbreaker for the Antonio line.”

  “Any hints?”

  “Those are hints.” There was a slight rumpus of toenails, and then all four animals swarmed into the den. “Hello pretty girl. Did you have fun with the littles? What can I do for you? Oh of course, well, always. Such a good girl. Yes you’re the best girl. Jesus Molly you saw me a few minutes ago.”

  He was laughing, wiping his face. “This dog, I swear.”

  “I know.” Dana had her hands full with the two small dogs. Spike the cat was on the table investigating the cookies. “Get your ass down, you little shit.” She goosed him gently. He gave her a pro forma hiss and jumped onto the cushioned bench, where he washed himself vigorously. “You look really great. You’ve been sleeping.”

  “And eating. Not like this spring, that was extreme, but it seems Consuelo is enjoying having Loretta around. They’re always in the kitchen conspiring. I call Mom up and tell her what they made. It’s always a good conversation starter.”

  “How is she doing?”

  “Lonely. Sad. Missing Pop.” Andy wasn’t making eye contact. “I asked her if she wants me to come out and she said, not until Christmas, I need to get used to it. Her complex has all these activities. She’s doing everything.”

  “Still seeing old friends?”

  “Oh yeah. Well, you know. She’s lived in Miami all her life.” Andy leaned back against the wall, gazing at Dana. “There are times I think I should have gone back there to live.”

  “You had a good relationship with him this way.”

  “Yeah. Probably a better relationship than if I’d been there. He was a stubborn old goat.” He drank the rest of his coffee. “And I would have resented it. I know this was better.”

  “Your life would have been smaller there. And you wouldn’t have met Victor.”

  “God, I know. I look at him sometimes and think, what if. Who would I have settled for, so I wouldn’t be alone forever.”

  Dana drank coffee, watching him over the rim of the mug. “Was there anyone here?”

  “Not really. My best bet might have been Sergei. I could have moved to Las Vegas, if it got bad enough here.” If I didn’t have Victor, if I didn’t have a home. Surrounded by friends finding love while I didn’t. Dana might have seen all that. Andy shook himself a little. “Sergei and I were never together.

  There wouldn’t have been any baggage. It was always this, well, maybe. You know?”

  “Yeah, I know. There were a few well maybes back in the day.”

  “Of course there fucking were. Little blonde hottie.” Dana did a ‘stop it’

  thing, but she was smiling. “Anyway I did meet Victor, thank all the gods, as Tanith would say. So instead of becoming bitter and hateful in my lonely old age, I get to fuck like a tomcat and brag about it to all my happily-married friends.”

  “And also, of course, live in a castle.” Andy performed a gesture saying

  ‘exactly.’ Dana offered a refill. He nodded. She poured. “I’m still jealous of that sunroom.”

  “You should be.”

  Victor stared at Robyn. As usual, she appeared totally relaxed. Attentive, calm, and nonjudgemental. “Doesn’t any of this get to you?”

  “Victor, you’re not telling me you murdered someone and hid the body.

  You have some issues, we’re talking about your issues, and you’re going to

  solve those issues. Because you want to. What gets to me is if someone comes in here to talk about their issue but they don’t really want to solve it.”

  He laughed under his breath. “Yeah, okay. So when Andy and I talked about this I’d already figured out part of the problem. Two parts of the problem. I mean, the source. Why I was resentful, why I was jealous. I still haven’t figured out why I would lash out at him like that. I spent so many years suppressing, why wouldn’t I … .” He trailed off. Thought for a minute.

  “Because I don’t have to?”

  Robyn did a ‘possibly?’ thing. “You trust him.”

  “I do. I always did, even when it was potentially career suicide to trust him.” He didn’t say anything for a while. Robyn didn’t push. She never did.

  Sometimes simply being in that room with someone who was waiting to hear what he had to say was enough to get him to the next words. Even though he always had that at home, especially now. Now that they had so much time.

  “Our first night was eight hours long. We haven’t talked about that, have we?” She shook her head. She knew how he’d met Andy, and how he’d made the pass that took them to bed, and how he’d fucked things up almost immediately.

  “Tell me if you want to,” she said after a while.

  That was all he needed. “We had sex three times in those eight hours.

  We slept together, we talked, we kissed so much my mouth was sore the whole next day.” I was sore all over, he thought. “We were naked. That was only the third time in my life I was naked with a lover, and the first time I spent a whole night with a man.”

  Robyn had heard about Victor’s experiences with women. He’d told her he felt like the sex was the price for actually sleeping with someone. “That must have been profound.”

  “I was almost crying when I walked out of there. I was like, how can I leave, I have to leave, this was the worst thing I’ve ever done. His face, my God.”

  “When you told him you had to go?”

  “When I told him I shouldn’t have been there.” Victor pinched the bridge of his nose, took a deep breath,
let it out slowly. “Sometimes I feel like all I’ve ever done is hurt him.”

  “Victor.”

  “I know. I know it’s not true. And he’s taken a swipe at me a few times.

  But you know, he’s always so far out in front of me. He’s got those extra years, all that experience. He hears himself and he fixes it. I don’t always hear myself.”

  “You’ll get there.”

  “So the first time. Are you sure about this? I can’t talk about this without getting graphic. I don’t want to gross you out.”

  “Victor, I do court-ordered counseling.”

  Ugh, he thought. “Okay. I had him on his back on the couch and we were about to do it. He had one foot on the floor and the other up on the back of the couch. I was about to turn him over. He said, uh-uh, I want to see your face. For a second I was like, what? Because I never did that before. Not face to face. He told me where the lube was, and that alone made me feel like an idiot. I knew we needed it. Anyway he pulled me down and kissed me again, and hooked that foot over my back. When I got in, being able to see his face, my God. Being able to kiss him while we did that. It was the most intimate thing I’d ever done in my life. I didn’t even know what I was feeling. I was never in love before. You could have told me that was what it was, and I would have said, no, you’re loco.”

  “Even your first boyfriend?”

  “Oh hell no.” Victor smiled. “He was great, we had a great time. He was such a pendejo. He was a liar, he drank like a fish, he stole things. Funny as hell, terrible temper, always in trouble with his mouth.” His smile faded. “I still hate that he died. It wasn’t his fault or my fault, neither of us did anything to deserve that. Nobody deserves that.”

  “Did you ever feel that you did deserve it?”

  “No. I was in the closet for Mama, not because I hated myself.”

  Robyn nodded, and made a note. “So what happened next?”

  He knew she meant with Andy. “Did a little cleanup. Went to sleep.

  When we woke up he said he was hungry, so we went in the kitchen and then it was like one in the morning, right? He didn’t ask me to stay, but he didn’t tell me to get out, either. I didn’t ask. I just didn’t leave. Didn’t want to leave.

  After a while we started kissing again. And then we were back on the couch doing sixty-nine, and I’d only done that twice before, and Jesus. Even with condoms, with that mouth, my God.” Victor could tell Robyn was trying not

  to laugh. “Yeah, I was never so glad as when he said we didn’t need them anymore. We were both clean.”

  “When was that?”

  “Early, like a month in, after we cooled off enough to talk history and open up the charts. I won’t lie, I was worried.”

  “Because he was older?”

  “That, and he’d been in New York in the eighties.”

  “Had you been with other people in between?”

  “Neither of us was with anybody else after that first night. It was sixteen months from the first to the second. He said he’d always been super careful because when he moved to New York it was right in the middle of the AIDS

  epidemic. Everyone was careful, unless they wanted to die, or unless it was too late for them.”

  Robyn made a movement, almost a shudder. “Were you that careful?”

  “Before? No, I was lucky. Lucky there was hardly anybody I could be with. I wasn’t picking people up at random.” But this was about him and Andy. “He took some pictures. He asked, and I was in this kind of dream state. We slept again, and then we were kissing again. I stopped thinking about the next day, about what happened next. When it started to heat up again he didn’t even ask. Put me up against the wall and was getting me ready. I’d taken it before, a couple times. Didn’t a hundred percent like it.

  Even so I was like, well, okay. Anything. Anything he wanted. And then he did this thing.”

  After a moment Robyn asked, “What thing?”

  “Wrapped his hand around my throat. I was like, what the fuck. Almost scared, you know? Wasn’t expecting that, or anything like it.”

  “Did you think he was going to hurt you?”

  “Wouldn’t have been the first time.” For some reason it seemed important to say, “I kind of expected it. Taking it, that can hurt. He’s taller, he’s got … well, use your imagination.” Robyn did laugh then. “Anyway.

  There I was, braced on the wall. I could feel his ring against the side of my trachea, right here.” He touched his neck. “Then his lips were against my face, this brush of a kiss. I realized he wasn’t gripping.” Victor showed Robyn the difference between curved fingers and the way Andy’s hand was.

  A dancer’s hand, strong, but graceful and open. “You’ve seen his hands. He

  stroked down my neck, then back up to cup my jaw.” He did it to himself, showing her. “He turned my face like this and kissed me, and I fucking melted. He said something.” He thought back. “What did he say? Really low, really soft. What was it. Can’t remember.” Victor let his hand fall, shaking his head, half laughing. “Anyway, he dances, he still does the morning class thing. I go out and watch sometimes, do part of it with him. He makes that shape with his hand and it’s like I can feel it. Never fucking fails.”

  “So is that why you signed the release?”

  He thought about it. “Because he could have hurt me, and didn’t?

  Maybe. Yeah, maybe so.”

  “You put your life in his hands.”

  “Literally. And I know that’s part of why what I did hurt him. It was giving and taking away at the exact same moment. But he forgave me. He always does. Because he loves me.” And I don’t deserve it, he started to think, and then corrected himself. That was a reflex, based on nothing but fear, fear that had no foundation. He loved Andy with everything he had.

  Andy knew it. “And I deserve it. I deserve to be loved.”

  Robyn permitted herself a small smile. “Good work today. Same time next week?”

  “Yeah, thanks.” Victor got himself together and went out, still wondering about those words he couldn’t remember. Wondering if Andy would. They’d said a lot of things to each other that night, and it was years ago. It bothered him that he couldn’t remember something from that night, from that moment.

  He went to collect Loretta from the spa at The Grove. They picked up a few things from the farmer’s market, taking a chance on a moment of normality. She was dressed casually, wearing sunglasses and a hat, looking like a pretty but probably-not-famous Los Angelena. People did the ‘hey isn’t that’ thing, turning to look at Victor, but he was unshaven, and with a woman. It seemed that was sufficient camouflage. In any case, they got out before it turned into a mob-the-celebrity scene. He listened to her chatter all the way home. Parked the car, spoke to their security guard, and said, “I’m going to get a little sun while I still can.” Loretta said something about studying, and took the market things inside. Victor went up into the home studio to change into shorts, then back outside to lie on the big double lounger and wait for Andy to get home. He was warm, somewhat drowsy, lying there with his eyes closed when he heard the sounds of a familiar

  vehicle, and the familiar light-footed stride accompanied by the patter of Molly’s paws. “Hey there.”

  “Hey yourself.” Andy leaned over to kiss his gorgeous husband. So did Molly, before going to her usual spot behind the lounger. “Dana fed me cookies. She said please take some home with you so I don’t eat all of them, so here.”

  Something landed on Victor’s chest. He smiled without opening his eyes, lifted the small package off and set it by his hip. “I was talking to Robyn about our first night. Something’s bothering me.”

  “Oh yeah? Can I help?” Andy stretched out beside him, certain that Victor’s choice of the double was some kind of invitation. It usually was, especially after a session with the counselor. They didn’t always talk to each other about those afterward, but they almost always wanted to be close.

  “Th
e third time, after the pictures, when you put me up against the wall.

  You did that thing with your hand.”

  Oh. Andy wondered if his husband had gone into detail about the sex. If so, that was interesting, especially in view of their mutual insatiability this year. He was positive it was linked to the shooting. Everything seemed to be, and he knew they had to air it all out sometime. But maybe not today. “This thing.” Andy did it to him.

  “Jesus, Andy.” Instant arousal. Never failed. Then that mouth on his again. Victor reached for him, got an arm around his neck for a long, enthusiastic kiss. When Andy shifted away Victor opened his eyes. It was not nearly dark enough to be doing this outside. Not dark at all, in fact. Andy was smiling at him. “What did you say? You said something right after that, before you started to get in. It’s really bugging me that I can’t remember.”

  “Ah. Let me think.” Andy stared back at him. He had Victor’s hand, absently stroking the inside of his wrist. “There were a lot of things I was trying not to say. You were so beautiful, that whole night was such a dream.

  At first I thought, you know, this was going to be a casual thing. Serendipity.

  Make the most of it.”

  “That’s what I thought too. But the first time was magic, and I didn’t leave. Then the second time was magic, and I couldn’t leave. When we started again you seemed different, like you were going to take everything.

  And for a minute I thought I was about to pay for the rest of it. Then you did that thing and I was like oh my God, how. Help me Jesus.” He smiled a little.

  Andy kissed him again. “I was going for everything. I was like, God damn you for being this way and never being here before. By that time I thought there was a chance this wasn’t casual.” He leaned his head against Victor’s and spoke very softly. “It didn’t feel casual. And the way you reacted when I did that … the only word I ever found for it was surrender.”

  “Mmm.”