Blink (17 page)

By the time he rose above me, pushing my legs up on his shoulders, I was ready for him. More than ready. I had to restrain myself from begging, from telling him to hurry up and put it in me.

Even though it had been a long time, there was no pain as he entered. He went slow anyway, teasing and testing me with his cock, which I have to admit was big—a good eight inches, and the accent is on
good
. He would push in, then pull out, push in a little farther, then back out, getting me used to him.

By the time he slid all the way in, I was whispering fast and breathless, almost an animal, for him to
just come on and fuck me
.

The man had endurance, I will say that much for him. But again, each time he sensed by my body and my breathing that I was getting close, he would slow down, so that when he at last came, shooting inside me—and inside the Magnum condom he’d carried optimistically in his pocket—we did it together, crying out into the bedroom.

We lay quiet for a long time after, letting our respiration and pulse rates return to normal. After a while, Fremont stroked the top of my head and said softly, his voice all deep and velvety, “If you hadn’t told me this was your first time after a long dry spell, I never would have guessed it.”

I snuggled closer to him and said, “It’s because you know how to treat a man.”

“I like to think so.”

I punched his arm. “You know you’re an expert! False modesty is
not
becoming.”

“Okay, I’m a big old stud.”

“You are.”

Our conversation really didn’t go much deeper than that. The next thing I knew, Fremont had drifted off to sleep.

I quickly joined him. But now, glancing over at the digital numbers of my alarm clock, I see that I’ve only slept for an hour or so. It’s a little after three.

Making slow, deliberate movements so as not to wake Fremont, I slip silently from the bed, pad naked from the bedroom, and close the door behind me.

I settle onto the couch in the living room and switch on the lamp on the end table beside me. I wonder what I’ve just done, if I was truly ready for it.

There’s a picture of Harry and me on the end table. It was taken shortly before he got diagnosed with cancer, and I think of it as a time when we were running around in a fool’s paradise, living on borrowed time. I know now that the cancer cells were already taking hold inside him, replicating and spreading silently, lethal.

But in the photo we radiate nothing but happiness. We’re at one of our favorite restaurants, an old-school Italian joint in Wicker Park with a menu full of traditional dishes like manicotti with meatballs, veal marsala, and eggplant parmigiana. I recall asking the waiter to take our picture. We’re both smiling, me turned in my seat and looking over my shoulder, Harry against an exposed brick wall. Our wineglasses are raised to the waiter.

It hadn’t been an anniversary or a birthday or any special occasion, really. Just a night of being together. And looking back on it now, I wish I had known how every one of those happy times together really was a celebration, an event.

I finger his face through the frame’s glass and wonder softly, “Are you okay with this?”

I imagine he would be. Harry always had a more cavalier attitude about sex than I did, and I know he wouldn’t have wanted me to even go as long as I have without some connection.

I lean back, unwilling to return the photo to the end table, so I cradle it in my lap. The tears pooled at the corners of my eyes splash onto the glass. Yes, there have been a few hookups since Harry died, but that’s all they were, barely a step up from masturbation. But this, tonight, was more. There was emotion involved.

And sleeping, don’t forget sleeping.

Fremont not only—to mix not one but two clichés—rocked my world, but he also shook my very foundations.

And for that reason I can’t help but feel some remorse, shame, and that old Catholic bugaboo so deeply instilled within me—guilt. I glance down at Harry’s face, thinking how I once believed no one could ever replace him, and yet I don’t know, especially now, if that’s true or not.

Whether Fremont is meant to be in my life for just a night or a lot longer, it’s too soon to tell. But the one thing I can’t deny is that meeting him and being with him is enough to show me that love is possible again.

I know that should make me feel joyous, but it also makes me sad. Harry will always be a part of me. His stamp on my life and heart is indelible. That truth is in my head, just as I understand that loving Fremont someday, or any other man, won’t lessen what Harry meant to me, won’t have any effect at all on his memory and the years of happiness he brought me.

I lift the picture to my lips and kiss Harry. “I’ll always love you,” I whisper to him, thinking how he would have teased me about quoting Dolly Parton. I smile and turn to put the picture back on the end table.

Fremont is standing there, just outside the living room, watching. He’s put on his Diesel button-fly underwear that I found so unbearably sexy a few hours ago. He cocks his head, eyebrows coming together in a question.

“You caught me,” I say, knowing my grin is of the sheepish variety. I brush a tear from the corner of my eye.

He sits down on the couch beside me, gives my shoulder a squeeze. “All I caught was a guy who loved the man he was with.” He shook his head. “That’s not a crime. What is a crime is me trying to compete with a memory.”

His last words shock me; is he dumping me before we even begin?

“But I’m up for the challenge.” Fremont snuggles close, and I tense. He moves away again. “What I caught you at was only natural, man. You loved him?”

“I told you I did. With all my heart.”

Fremont puts his hand on my chest. “I hope not all of it. I hope you left a
little
room in that heart for someone else, whether it’s me or some other lucky guy.”

I look over at him. “The amazing thing about a heart is its capacity. Infinite.”

“Like that bottomless cup of coffee I’ve heard tell about?”

I laugh. “Exactly.”

We’re quiet for a while. The world is still. And it’s okay, sitting here with him.

Just as I’m about to ask him if he wants to go back to bed, he leans forward and says, “Got an early morning tomorrow. I’m gonna head home.”

I realize I don’t even know where home is for him. I ask.

“I live up in Rogers Park. Got a nice place right on the lakefront. You should see it sometime.”

“I’d like that.”

“What are you doing Saturday night?”

I lean back and close my eyes. My social calendar for the longest while has consisted of little more than work/home, work/home, lather, rinse, repeat. “I think I’m free. Why?”

“I’m having a little party. It’s to celebrate my daughter’s nineteenth birthday.”

“You have a daughter?”

“Sweetie, I have four daughters. And a son.” He chuckles and then gets a faraway look in his eyes. “I was married for almost twenty years.”

“Really?” There’s so much I do not know about this man. Five children? Wow. “You deluded yourself for that long?”

He gives me a patient smile. “It’s more complicated than that. I loved their mother. Still do. Sometimes our choices aren’t all black and white.” He chuckles. “And there’s no pun in that! It’s just that….” His voice trails off. “Anyway, I love ’em all, and they all love their daddy. Especially when Daddy throws a birthday party. They know they’ll be getting something expensive—that’s one of the laws for fathers who divorce.” He laughs again. “Not really, but Abra, that’s who the party’s for, will be getting a very sweet red Cooper Mini.”

“Nice.”

“So you wanna come?”

“I thought I just did. I don’t refresh as quick as I used to.” I grin.

He shakes his head. “I like you. And don’t avoid my question.”

“I don’t know. Isn’t it a family affair?”

“And he brings to mind another childhood TV favorite!” Fremont exclaims. “It’s a mix of family and friends. Not so big that you’d get lost, but not so small that you’d feel weird. Just come by and have a drink.”

“I don’t know. I’ll think about it.”

He stands. “You do that. And I will hope to see you there. If not, we’ll plan something else, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Now I gotta go, unfortunately, and put my clothes back on. Before I do that, I want to ask, is there any reason I should delay that process?”

“I’m tempted, but honestly, my hole is still throbbing.”

He lets out a booming laugh. “Enough said.”

“Enough is the right word. You wear a guy out.”

He starts out of the room.

“Fremont?”

“Yes?”

“Enough never lasts very long.”

“I’m counting on it.”

He goes into the bedroom and then the bathroom. Water rushes, toilet flushes. He returns dressed, looking fresher than he should for a little after four o’clock in the morning.

I lead him to the door, and he leans in to give me a sweet, gentle kiss.

I
T
’
S
ONLY
when I get inside Potent Potables that the name—and where it comes from—hits me. It’s a common category on
Jeopardy!
where the contestants need to supply, in the form of a question, the name of a cocktail.

The bar’s physical resemblance to the game show ends with its name. Inside, it’s a pretty typical Halsted Street bar, in the commercial space of an old redbrick building; it occupies the first floor with apartments upstairs. I always wonder what kind of guy lives above a bar on Halsted Street. I mean, this section of the thoroughfare, between Addison and Belmont, is lined with gay bars and businesses that cater to the queerer side of the population. Do people rent those units because the close proximity would make it easy to swoop down in the evening, collect an inebriated playmate, and march right back upstairs with less than a half hour lost?

Me, I’ve never lived in this area, commonly called Boystown, precisely because, as much I sometimes like to visit—and that’s becoming a lot less frequent as I grow older—I also want to be able to get away from the rainbow flags and pylons and the throngs of gay men and women parading up and down its sidewalks, especially on the weekends.

Does that sound self-loathing? It’s not. It’s just that I’ve never been much of a bar person. I’m an introvert, and the kind of cruising that goes on within a bar’s confines is way out of my comfort zone. The advent of the Internet is more my speed, allowing me to hide behind a flattering picture and my way with words. Considered, thoughtful, edited words—unlike what I might blurt out in a bar.

I look around the place and am pleased to see that at least it’s not dark. And because of the laws enacted several years ago, not smoky. It’s a well-lit space, done up cheerfully in orange and white, ultramodern and sleek.

I hope Chet hasn’t arrived yet. Aside from the normal jitters I’d get from a situation like this—date, job interview, whatever you want to call it—I’m still disconcerted by seeing Carlos on the ‘L.’

You need to let it go. Not just tonight’s sighting, but the whole impossible dream. It’s not good for your mental health. And it certainly won’t be an asset tonight. Don’t you dare bring up this outlandish tale to Chet!

I let my gaze roam over the room. It’s early in the evening, so the place isn’t too crowded. Most of the guys are gathered at the bar. There’s only one group—four younger guys who look, from their business-casual attire, like they’ve extended their after-work happy hour into the evening. All the other guys are singles, most nursing beers and staring up at the video screens projecting—wait for it—
Jeopardy!

Ah, I get it now. This place must show the Alex Trebek-hosted contest around the clock. And why not? There’s plenty of footage from which to choose, and the show itself is great to watch in a bar setting, whether you’re alone or with a group. It’s a real conversation starter. The element of a contest is fitting too. The questions take some of the pressure off the competition always going on in a gay bar.

Although I see a few guys in baseball caps—I think gay men have embraced this trend even more fervently than their straight counterparts—none of them is Chet, unless he looks a lot different than his picture. I amble up to the bar and order a dirty martini. I figure the hard stuff will help calm my nerves. I just have to remember to go easy on the sauce. I’m a lightweight.

I’ve just taken a sip of the expertly made cocktail, reveling in its briny chill, when I feel someone tap me on the shoulder.

I turn around to face Chet. I smile and think that the picture he used on the site had to be at least a few years old.
It’s okay
, I think;
we all want to put our best foot forward
. The guy before me still has the beard and the baseball cap I saw in his profile pic, but the beard that was flecked with gray on OkCupid is now fully silver. He also didn’t wear glasses in his profile picture, but now a pair of wire-rimmed oval frames shield his muddy-brown irises.

Which is not to say he looks bad. He doesn’t. Just older. He’s still cute, with a kind of high-school wrestling coach vibe about him,
augmented by his outfit—an Abercrombie & Fitch jersey, cargo shorts, and workman’s boots. I try to hold in any judgment I know I would make if I were sitting here with Jules observing him, about a man trying a bit too hard to look manly and young. We would laugh into our drinks, and for sure Jules would say something like “Mutton dressed as lamb.”

I slide off the stool, smiling, to shake his hand.

He grabs my hand and uses it to pull me into a bear hug, planting a too-wet kiss on my neck, which startles me. I move back and hop up on my stool, give a little laugh. I want to admonish him for being fresh, as my mom would say, but instead I ask him what he’d like to drink. “I’ll get the first round,” I say, holding up my glass. “Since I’ve already started.”

He orders a Bud Light and sits down beside me. Immediately one of his hands goes to my leg, just above my knee, and rests there for a moment before he takes it away. He looks me up and down as though gauging my reaction and then does it again. His grin, a little lewd, never wavers. I wonder if a wolf whistle is in store. I begin to have my doubts about Chet but again remind myself to withhold judgment. He just got here, after all.
Give the guy a freakin’ chance
!