“Great. I wouldn’t even need Jeffrey. I could just wear my dress uniform.” Jeffrey threw me a look bordering on murderous and stomped to the back room. Actually, wearing my dress uniform would have been preferable. The idea of wearing another tuxedo for any occasion made my skin itch.
“Mm. You are yummy when you wear your costume.”
“Uniform,” I corrected with a rueful grin and chuckle.
“Whatever,” she replied airily and laid the grey tie atop a stack of white button-down shirts. She didn't mean to be flippant about my job; she was just preoccupied with wedding planning.
“Exactly,” I said. “Whatever you want.”
“You’re not helpful,” she said and shook her head, smiling absently.
“Because I want to live to see twenty-seven. You’re on the wrong side of crazy with this wedding planning.”
“Pah,” Angelica huffed. “You’re exaggerating.”
I really wasn’t. Angelica was one of the kindest and most uncomplicated women I knew; but since she’d started planning this wedding, I was a little afraid. And I dealt with drug dealers and crack whores for a living.
She had fired the caterers when they didn’t “condescend to make a buffet style dessert table”. The florist had quit after Angelica had said she wanted the roses to match the bridesmaids’ dresses, and then promptly changed the wedding colors two days later. She had asked me to tell Mark, one of my groomsmen, to wear heels because he was shorter than all the bridesmaids. I refused and she blamed me for all of the bridesmaids wearing ballet slippers.
Later she would apologize and promise to do better. We forgave her because, in all honesty, the girl who apologized was “our Angelica”, not the crazy bride.
Angelica was the barracuda lawyer to whom I could send troubled kids and expect her to defend them vigorously from prosecution. She routinely tried to cook dinner and laughed harder than I when it ended up smelling like an outhouse. She dropped her head and snored loudly when I talked about sports. She burped and watched Saturday morning cartoons.
Angelica was not flakey or indecisive. Until she had to pick chiffon or silk, or roses or chrysanthemums.
Truth be told, I didn’t recognize her during wedding planning. So I preferred to steer clear of it.
“Should I stay for another fitting, or have we determined my uniform will work? Or maybe the navy suit he already made?” I asked. Jeffrey, carrying said suit, was approaching us. The sound that echoed in his throat conjured up images of choking cats.
“We’re going with the navy suit,” Angelica decided with a perfunctory nod and wrinkled her nose at the bundle the tailor held. “Oh, not that one, Jeffrey, the one with the mandarin collar,” she clarified.
The strangling cat sound erupted as a screech. “That was black, mademoiselle. Not navy!” I stifled a grin.
“Mm. Oh, Jeffrey, calm down. It’s basically the same suit, just in navy.” She patted his wiry hair and walked toward the back rooms. Jeffrey’s face was red enough to sub as a police light. “Don’t disappear, Austin,” Angelica called over her shoulder. I watched the way her ass moved under the halter dress. “And stop leering. It’s unnerving poor Jeffrey.”
“Wouldn’t dream of leaving.” Or of stopping my leering. “But I’m reasonably sure you’re the one unnerving him.” The little man made another choked sound and tensed so hard he shook. Being fitted for another suit while a pin-wielding Jeffrey was in the apoplectic throes of agony, officially made me a masochist. By the end of the day I’d have enough pricks to prove it.
I should stop thinking about pricks. And bunnies. And pricks fucking bunn—
“Please, I beg of you, stop her, Monsieur Glass,” The tailor’s nervous eyes twitched from Angelica at the back of the shop, to me. I couldn’t blame him for his plea; she was now investigating a beige suit jacket. “I haven’t completed one suit!”
“Now, now, Jeffrey, eight more weeks and we’ll both be put out of our tailoring misery.”
Douchebag of the Year Award
Two hours later, Angelica twined her fingers with mine as we walked toward my car. We would split up for the day before arriving there, as she had “things to do that would only annoy you, Austin.” The wedding colors had been officially changed to navy and silver; though by the next week I expected them to be red and gold, or even pink and black. I was relaxed enough that my mind wandered back to slippers-boy as we moved quietly through the mall. Which relegated me to Biggest Asshole on the Planet.
I needed to stop thinking about it. Him. I felt like such a jerk. Especially since I was so lucky to be with her.
“Austin?” Angelica prodded me out of my musings. “What are you thinking about?”
I offered a guilty smile at her furrowed brow. “How lucky I am,” I said, touching her hand to my lips while wiggling my brows.
She laughed musically and leaned into my arm. The bump was too soft for any effect other than to cause me to look at her. I winced when I compared her tanned shoulder to freckled skin. I was a bastard. Angelica was beautiful, both inside and out, and to compare her to some grungy man-child was Grade-A douchbaggery.
“My dress came in today,” Angelica sighed blissfully, her green eyes glazing over. Unbidden, I pictured eyes the color of the sky.
“Can I come in your dress today?” My brows waggled again, earning another bright laugh from her.
“Mm. Maybe later this week. Oh, and don’t forget we have the gala next Sunday.” We stopped at a nearby hotel, using their taxi stand to get her a ride home. With a quick kiss and a gentle wave, she climbed into the first cab that pulled up and they drove off.
Continuing the Douchebag of the Year theme, I walked the half block, got into Arturo and drove thirty blocks out of my way to pass slipper-boy’s diner.
I honestly had no idea why I was there, or why I couldn’t keep my mind off him. Him. I even had to keep reminding myself it was a him. Not a her. No breasts. And, I guessed, no vagina. Definitely a him. And my fantasies were filling with images of his mouth on naked things of mine.
Naked things. With a guy. Naked things with a guy. Surreal.
I sat outside for half an hour with those words buzzing in my ear, before giving myself a mental slap and driving home. I resolved to forget about Bunny Slippers.
A block later the resolve crumbled as I began picturing those slippers’ ears flopping around with the guy’s feet in the air while I pounded into—
Jesus! Okay, that’s just disturbing.
We Played Football Together, They Can’t Be Gay
Back at my apartment, I sat at the computer and shuffled through websites. The moment I found myself downloading the wrong kind of porn, I figured I should go out. I needed to get my mind off sex. It was nearly an impossible feat, so I settled for keeping my mind off sex with a guy. Seriously. What the fuck?
I wasn’t gay. You don’t go twenty-six years before the gay gene suddenly just kicks in. It didn’t work like that. I was sure of it. Not that I knew that much about being gay. I had one friend with same-sex orientation, and Dana hadn’t spoken to me since I asked her to describe her honeymoon in graphic detail—and then made vibrator noises. Actually, I would have called Dana anyway, but she was out of town until the end of the month.
Obviously Angelica’s sister came to mind. But Jessica had about as much figured out as I did. And if she was a lesbian, well, I probably would be less interested in that aspect of gay life than my current dilemma. I decided to call my best friend.
When I was in eighth grade, I used a self-timing camera to take nude pictures of myself in various stages of erection. I then exchanged my biology teacher’s slides with the images. The teacher, in a state of panic, kept rapidly pressing the ‘next’ button. It was like a pornographic flip-book. That was the last straw in a very heavy pile of straws. I was expelled, and I ended up transferring mid-year from boarding school to a public school near home.
In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have included my grinning
face in the pictures. With a thumbs up next to my penis.
Having spent the previous years at an overseas coed Catholic preparatory school, I had no idea how to cope with students who were not rich and privileged. I went from being one of sixty students to one of fifteen hundred plus. On my first day of class, I wore my former school uniform: tie, blazer, tan pants, button-down shirt. I don’t remember much except dark lockers and so many wedgies that even at age twenty-six I couldn’t see a thong without cringing.
By the end of the day, a sophomore named David Buchanan had rescued me and taken me under his wing. We had been getting in trouble ever since.
Dave was now married, and his wife was pregnant with their fourth child. He was the first person I went to when the world confused me. Which it often did. “Do you know any gay guys?” I asked when he picked up the phone.
“Why? Are you switching teams?” I heard the low chuckle on the other end.
“I’m not sure. Maybe,” I answered sincerely. He laughed again, because that’s what everyone did when I told the truth. It was a little disconcerting.
“Yeah, I know some gay guys. And you do, too.”
“I know some gay guys?” News to me.
“Jake and Terry.”
“They’re not gay,” I argued.
“Yeah? You better tell them to stop sleeping together, then.”
“We played football with Jake and Terry,” I maintained. “They can’t be gay.” They were also cops, like us. I was sure I didn’t know any gay cops. The stationhouse didn’t have the most gay friendly atmosphere.
The silence on the other end was either him covering the phone to laugh, or him waiting for me not to be stupid. Usually it was the latter.
“This for a case?” There was a hint of amusement in his voice. I pulled the phone away and studied it, unsure of how to answer that question.
“No. I need to know about ass-sex.” Dave choked, ended up in a coughing fit and, from the clunk on the other side, I guessed he must have dropped the phone. I grinned, having already figured that would be his response. When the coughing had subsided, I attempted to change the subject—before he took me seriously. “How’s Marta?”
“Beautiful,” he answered.
“Am I still banned from Sunday night dinners?” Marta was Swedish, tall, and always pregnant. But I should have asked David if she was pregnant that last time I saw her, because Marta was also a very large woman—rotund, my grandfather would have said. And I was very congratulatory.
“Next time, ask me first. She was barely three weeks along. Not showing at all.” This sent us both into nervous laughter. Not only because we were ashamed. If she heard us laughing about it, she’d stop making those awesome Swedish brownies.
“I plan on it. Give my love to the rugrats. And tell her if it’s a boy, she should name him Austin.”
“I’ll skip that recommendation. You’re not at the top of her favorite people list.”
“Tell her I’m sorry.” Again. I sighed.
“Send her a pair of baby sneakers. She goes nuts for baby things.”
“She’ll have them by Friday,” I promised.
“Gotta go,” he replied, and in the background I heard screaming which sounded like their two year old, Petra.
“Go,” I laughed.
After we hung up I considered calling Terry or Jake, but I needed a game plan first. I didn’t really want another set of friends banning me from their houses—or house. I really should have asked Dave if they lived together. Terry’s cell was programmed into my phone. I made a mental note to call. Later. Tomorrow. Next month. Or January.
On another note, now that I thought about it, I seemed to get banned from a lot of friends’ homes.
Tapping my fingers against the computer desk, I considered what to do next. I was avoiding the computer because of the gay porn, avoiding Angelica because I was guilty of wanting to watch gay porn, and avoiding my friends because I had to ask them about gay porn—or being gay, same difference. I could have called my father, but it would be too tempting to piss him off by telling him I might be gay. Which I wasn’t.
I settled on a beer and ESPN.
By the time I crawled into bed, I refused to acknowledge the last few minutes of beating off while watching the Duke/Notre Dame lacrosse match. I rolled over and forced myself to go over my Sunday routine of workouts, sports bars and what to do in the absence of my normal Sunday dinner at Dave’s.
Chapter Two
Denial. How fucking works it?
Sunday morning I opened my eyes and immediately went into denial.
I was not gay. I was engaged. To a woman. I wasn’t gay. And I backed up my denial with some sound reasoning.
First, I masturbated to images of women. I fantasized about women. Sure, there were men in my fantasies, but they were always doing women. Everyone did that. There were never solo men in my fantasies. Or my porn—discounting the previous night’s anomaly. Therefore, I wasn’t gay.
Second, people didn’t suddenly wake up gay. Being gay wasn’t like changing eye colors; you couldn’t just get contacts and “Whammo!”—gayness. Point two for me. Not gay.
Third, I had sex with women. Six women, in fact, since I graduated from high school. I had even been engaged to women before Angelica—who I’d been with for three years now. A man didn’t date a woman in her mid-thirties without realizing commitment was going to be on the table—very prominently, lit up with flashing lights, stacked above everything else, on the table. If I was that eager to get into a committed relationship with a woman—point three in the ‘not gay’ column.
And finally, being gay would seriously piss off my dad. Something I enjoyed immensely. The fact that I was debating if I could possibly be gay, and not driving over there to watch him keel over in shock as I announced it—another tick for ‘not gay’.
That settled that, then.
“I’m not gay,” I told my ceiling.
Taking a deep breath, I crawled out of bed and grabbed a pair of track pants. After getting dressed, I tried to avoid all internal discussions and zoned out watching ESPN while running on the treadmill. That plan was shot to shit the moment I turned on the TV.
There was no way gay men watched as much ESPN as I did—another check to the 'not gay' column. My confidence was returning; that made five ticks in column ‘not gay’, zero ticks for column ‘gay’. I felt immeasurably better. Until I entered the shower.
Why were men, who weren’t me, figuring in my fantasies at all? That was the first question that popped up in my mind. My subconscious, not-so-covertly, slipped into my head, You’ve cheated on every woman you’ve been with.
Yes, but with other women, I answered it.
Because you didn’t want to get married, it said.
The relationships weren’t working.
Shut up.
I didn’t even need my subconscious to argue why the relationships weren’t working: Sex.
It had never been exactly perfect. I had never felt that burning sensation in my stomach when I was around women or when I met someone new. But I was twenty-six. Kids got that feeling, not adults.
Mitzi. That was the last time I had felt that sensation. She was a girl.
That was your first kiss, though, and twenty-some other kids were watching.
Stop thinking about this! Easy to say, impossible to do.
That wasn’t the last time, now that I was thinking about what-I-wasn’t-supposed-to-be-thinking-about. I paused in the middle of soaping up my chest.
It wasn’t Mitzi. It was Jesse Chambroy, and I had been fourteen. I exhaled sharply and collapsed against the tile wall. After standing under the spray, in shock, for a good ten minutes, I climbed out of the shower, carefully, and braced my hands against the counter top, dripping onto my bathmat. I stared up into the mirror. My stunned brown eyes staring back at me.
Jesse Chambroy, the captain of the varsity football team. Muscled jock who’d had a smile like Tom Cruise. How could I have fo
rgotten that? How could I have forgotten him?
Austin or Alex or Idiot
“I’m not gay.” That wasn’t what I meant to say. At least not so bluntly. It had just become a mantra as I drove across town. Repeated over and over so many times that, by the time I stood in the diner, confronted once again by this visceral attraction to a perfect stranger, the words tumbled out.
“Congratulations. Would you like a medal?” Bunny Slippers asked.
“I already have a medal. For bravery, not for being gay. I think you made me gay.”
“I made you gay?” He set down the napkin he was holding. “Is that better or worse than the person who made you stupid?”"
“Worse,” I answered automatically. Then I computed what he said. Ouch. “I have a degree.”
“What are pointless and obtuse bits of information, Alex?”
“Austin,” I corrected.
“Right now, you’re Alex.”
“What?” This conversation wasn’t going at all like I planned.
“This is Jeopardy, right? You give all the answers, I tell you the questions?”
“You’re confusing,” I answered. Confusing and beautiful. Jesus. So beautiful. His eyes were bright and angry, framed by thick copper lashes. Another white t-shirt wrapped itself tightly against his chest and stomach, showing off his lean body. I might have drooled.
Bunny Slippers watched my appraisal for at least a full minute before clasping his hands and resting them on the table. “You stand in the doorway, clothes sticking to you like you just got out of the shower and didn’t dry off.” I hadn’t dried off actually. “Your hair is wet like it’s been raining, but it’s near ninety outside. You glare at me for a good ten minutes before you come over. Sit across from me in my booth, without an invitation. Don’t introduce yourself. Don’t say hello. You announce you’re not gay, but that I made you gay, and I am confusing you?”
Well, when he said it like that. “I’m not gay. You just made me think I was gay,” I clarified. I was frustrated and needed answers. Somehow I figured he had them. Logic: not one of my finer points today. Considering the last twenty-four hours of intense internal debate, I thought it understandable that I was being confusing, and feeling confused. I just wanted to stop thinking about him. Then I could go back to being not gay.