Chase of a Lifetime (13 page)

When Jim saw the way his penis began to
swing back and forth, he felt the sudden urge to go down on his knees. “I’m
sorry about what I said. I didn’t mean it. It’s just that it hurt when you told
me to stay away from Cain, as if I’m not good enough.”

Len leaned back and spread his legs a little
wider. In this position, it almost looked as if he was posing nude for a
photographer. Every muscle in his tight lean body seemed to glisten. “You
misunderstood. I don’t want you around Cain because I think he might be a bad
influence on you, is all. I love my son but he’s trouble. He can’t be trusted.”

“Do you mean that?”

“Of course I do,” Len said. “You’ve heard me
talk about the trouble Cain is always getting into. And now that he’s coming
home to Dallas I’m worried about how he’s going to act. I never know what to
expect or what he’s scheming.
 
I’d never
compare you to Cain or belittle you, Jim.”

Jim shrugged. “Well, I’m sorry about what I
said about you being old. I didn’t mean any of it.”

Len grabbed his balls and flung Jim a
glance. “Are you saying you want to get back into bed? We still have a few more
hours. It’s only one in the morning and I’m sure you can think of something we
can do.”

Jim turned and crossed back to a chair where
he’d left his clothes the first time he’d undressed. “I guess I could stay a
little longer.” He wanted to blow Len that night. He’d been thinking about it
all day. Now that he’d seen Len’s dick swinging around, he could wait to go
down on him.

As Jim began to remove his pants, Len went
back to bed and said, “Just promise me you’ll stay as far away from Cain as
possible when he comes home. I’d rather you two didn’t get too friendly again.
It’s best for all concerned.”

Under the circumstances, Jim fully agreed.
He would try to avoid Cain as much as he could. After all these years, he
doubted Cain would even want to see him again. He pulled off his pants and left
them on the floor. “Let’s not talk anymore. We only have a short amount of time.”
Then he removed his shirt, went back to bed, and slid his head beneath the
covers.

As Len grew harder in his mouth, he
stretched his legs and said, “See what I mean, Jim. This is much better than
going out to dinner like other people. I could just lie here all night long
while you do this. I’ve never met a guy with such soft, sweet lips. You were
born to suck dick.”

When Len said this, something in Jim snapped.
Jim knew he’d just been manipulated. He knew, at that moment, Len would never
come out of the closet. He stopped sucking; he climbed out of bed and put on
his clothes as fast as he could without saying a word.

Len sat up and pulled the covers to his
waist. He turned on the light and asked, “What’s wrong now? Where are you
going?”

Jim turned to face him. “I want more, Len,
and you don’t. I want to go out to dinner and do things in public.
 
I think I’m in love with you. This isn’t going
to end well no matter what we do.” Then he grabbed his keys, turned to the door
with his shirt wide open, and left before Len had a chance to respond. He also
left Len’s cowboy hat on the chair where he’d removed his clothes.

A few days later, Jim asked his mother if
she wanted to go riding. It was late in the afternoon and his father wouldn’t
be home for dinner that evening. His father had an important business dinner
with a client, which wasn’t unusual. When Jim asked her this she was in the
kitchen going rummaging around in the pantry. She stopped what she was doing
and turned to face him with a blank expression; a can of peaches in one hand
and a jar of hearts of palm in the other.

He smiled. “Why do you look so shocked?
Can’t a guy ask his mom to do something without looking suspicious?”

Helen set the food back on a shelf and
smiled. Then she grabbed his arms and said, “Wait here. I have to change first.
I’ll be right back.” On her way upstairs, she shouted, as if to make sure he
wouldn’t change his mind, “Don’t go anywhere.”

When she returned, she was wearing jeans, a
white blouse, and a brown suede vest that matched her boots. He smiled and
said, “People are going to think you’re my sister instead of my mother.” He’d
always marveled at the way his mother never seemed to age. Of course there were
a few extra lines on her face and a few veins on her hands. But she was still
the same size she’d been the day she’d married his father, she still had her
hair colored the same light brown with subtle blond streaks, and she never left
the house without wearing at least a three inch high heel.

Helen blushed. “Don’t be silly.” Then she
smiled and headed toward the back door. She seemed a little hesitant; as if she
were afraid she’d say the wrong thing.

They rode to the back pasture and up a wide
path that Jim knew would lead them into a wooded section just off the property.
The heat wave they’d been experiencing all week had broken and there was a
gentle breeze blowing through the trees. They talked about the weather for a
few minutes, and then went silent for a while. They hadn’t actually spoken to
each other since Helen had confronted him in his bedroom the night he was
getting ready to sneak out to meet Len.

As they rode, Helen seemed content not to speak
at all and he figured it was her way of letting him know she didn’t want to
pressure him that afternoon. Although Jim’s father would have been asking him
about his future and law school, his mother always took a different approach.
She waited and listened. In some ways her silence could be even louder than his
father’s aggressive approach.

When they reached a clearing that bordered a
wide meadow, Jim took a quick breath and said, “Let’s get down and walk for a
while. We don’t get many days this nice. I’d like to talk about something. I
feel bad about what happened in my room the night you asked me where I was
going.”

He climbed down from his horse and then
helped his mother climb off hers. They walked for a few minutes with nothing
but the sound of branches and leaves crunching beneath their feet. He knew she
was waiting for him to speak first. He felt this in every fiber of his being. And
the more he walked the warmer he grew. By the time he finally started to speak
there were beads of perspiration running down the sides of his face.

Without glancing at her, Jim took a deep
breath and said, “There’s something I have to discuss with you.” His head was
about to explode.

Helen smiled and continued walking. “You
know you’ve always been able to talk to me about anything. I’m your mother and
you can say anything to me.”

He’d been practicing this for a few days.
He’d gone over it in his head, and aloud in front of his bathroom mirror, in so
many different ways he’d forgotten everything he’d rehearsed. So he stopped and
glanced down at the dirt path. When Helen stopped, he shoved his hands into his
pockets and said, “I’m gay.”

The minute the words fell from his mouth all
the blood in his body seemed to rush to the top of his head. His voice took on
a muffled sound, as if he were underwater. His hands, still in his pockets,
felt shaky and he didn’t dare pull them out. For a moment, it felt surreal, as
if he couldn’t believe he was finally having this conversation with his mother.
And then something happened he hadn’t expected. A second after the initial
shock of saying the word gay out loud, a sense of absolute relief passed
through him.

Helen remained silent for a moment. She
processed what he’d said and sighed. Then she sent him a blank stare, shrugged,
and said, “I know I’m supposed to be surprised. But I’m not. I’ve always known
deep down inside.”

Jim’s head jerked to the side. “You
knew
?” He hadn’t expected this reaction.

She smiled. “Well, I didn’t know for sure.
But no one knows you better than I do, Jim. I’m your mother and mothers have a
ways of picking up on things most people wouldn’t notice. I saw signs when you
were a child. I watched how you were in high school. When all the other kids
were going out to dances and movies together, you were upstairs reading a book.
A mother knows these things. It’s hard to explain.”

This was all news to Jim. Here he’d been
agonizing over telling her he was gay and she’d known about it all along. “Why
didn’t you ever say something?”

Helen shrugged. “I figured that it was best
for you to deal with it on your own. Maybe that was wrong. I don’t know. But I
figured that if I did confront you about it you’d only back away from me. It’s
not an easy position to be in, trust me. I wanted you to come to me.”

He knew she was right about this. If his
mother had even hinted he was gay back in high school he would have been so
mortified he would have denied it completely. And he would have backed away,
which would have caused a rift between them. He spread his arms out and said,
“I wasn’t even sure myself. I swear I didn’t lie to you on purpose.”

Helen moved closer and hugged him. She
kissed his cheek and took a step back. “I’m glad you finally told me. To watch
you this summer hasn’t been easy. I had a feeling a lot of what you’ve been
going through had a lot more to do with being gay and deciding about law
school. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so helpless about anything.”

Her ability to read him so well frightened
him a little. He didn’t want her to know about his affair with Len Mayfield or
any of the details about what he’d been doing that summer. “Does dad know,
too?” he asked. He was wondering if his mother and father had ever discussed
this.

Helen laughed. “Oh, hell no. Your father
doesn’t have the slightest clue, trust me. And if he did ever consider it, I’m
sure he would put it in the back of his mind.”

“Are you going to tell him?” He was
wondering if it might be easier for his mother to break the news to his father.

She hugged him again and climbed back up on
her horse. “No way,” she said. “That’s up to you to do. But I do think you
should do it sooner than later.” She looked down at him and lifted her
eyebrows. “It’s not fair that I know and he doesn’t know. He’s a good man, Jim.
He’ll understand in time, trust me. He deserves your honesty. You owe him that
for no other reason than because he loves you.”

Jim shoved his foot in the stirrup and flung
his leg over the saddle. “I need a little time. I’m not ready to talk to him
about it.” He was still in shock about telling her. It felt as if he’d been
introduced to his mother for the first time and nothing would ever be the same
again. It wasn’t a bad feeling; just different.

“Don’t wait too long,” she said. “C’mon,
let’s go back to the house. I have a couple of steaks we can grill. And then
you can go out and do whatever it is you do at night. I’m not going to ask. But
I want to know that you’re having safe sex.”

A rush of adrenaline shot through his body.
“Mom, seriously.” The last thing he wanted to do was discuss his sex life with
his mother…even if she had just proven to him she was the coolest person in the
world.

“I’m just saying,” she said. “I’m not an
idiot and I know how important it is for everyone to have safe sex nowadays.
Promise me you’ll be careful.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll have safe sex. I
promise.” After this fight with Len, he wasn’t sure when he’d have sex again. The
only man he’d ever been with was Len Mayfield and he knew Len wasn’t having sex
with anyone else.

*****

After dinner, he went up to his room and
plopped down on his bed. He looked at his phone and saw that Len had phoned him
four times that afternoon. Len had been phoning him non-stop since the night
he’d left Len in the hotel room and Jim hadn’t answered once. He knew what
would happen if he did answer. Len would talk to him in that deep, convincing
voice and make him weak. Len would tell him that everything was going to be all
right and that they should get together and talk. Jim would listen, trying to
steel himself from being taken in by Len’s charm, not to mention his desires
for Len. Then he would agree to meet Len somewhere, they’d wind up having sex
again, and the vicious cycle of sneaking around would resume. Jim wanted more
out of life than just great sex. He wanted a man who could offer him a future,
not just a man who could offer him a few good times, sore legs, and a room they
rented by the hour.

A few minutes later, the phone rang again and
he almost turned off the ringer. But something told him to look at the caller
ID to see if it was Len. When he did look, he saw a strange phone number he’d
never seen before. So he answered out of curiosity.

It turned out to be Cain Mayfield. Cain said,
“My mom gave me your phone number. She’s been bugging me to call you since I
got home.”

Jim found it hard to speak. He was sorry
he’d answered. Cain must have been calling from a cell phone. “You’re home?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m back for a few weeks
before I start grad school at Stanford. And I’m going crazy here. I was in
Austin, with this girl I met at school. We decided to take a break from each
other and I came home. Short version to a very long story.” He laughed when he
said this, as if to cover something up.

Jim gulped. “I see.”

“Listen, buddy,” Cain said. “You want to get
together and hang out for a while tonight? My folks are driving me crazy. I
don’t know why they just don’t get divorced. It would be so much easier on
everyone.” He laughed again, as covering up his real feelings.

It was the last thing Jim wanted to do. “I
was just going to read a book.” He did feel a little sorry for Cain. He knew
better than anyone that Len’s marriage was over. Though there wasn’t animosity
between Len and his wife, there was no happiness either.

“Fuck the book, dude,” Cain said. “You
haven’t seen your old buddy in ages. Let’s get together.”