Shy (13 page)

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You surprised me is all.”

“S’okay,” he said. But he didn’t try to touch me again. He seemed to have learned his lesson. And he seemed to have finally accepted where he stood in the grand order of things.

“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” he said. “I don’t want to come between you and Frank. Well, I
do
,
but I don’t think it’s going to happen.” He looked me squarely in the eye. “It’s not, is it? Going to happen?”

Sadly, for him, I said, “No, Jerry, it’s not. I’m sorry.”

Whatever Jerry was about to say was left unsaid, because that was the moment the waitress came to take our orders. The rest of our lunch date was pretty much just a matter of eating and passing generic pleasantries back and forth. He did not try to take my hand again. He did not tell me he loved me again. He did not ask me to take him back again. The only request he made of me was to “pass the ketchup.”

When we parted ways, Jerry said good-bye with his hands in his trouser pockets, as if he didn’t trust himself not to reach out to me again. I told him to take care of himself, he said the same to me, and then I watched him walk away. His shoulders were hunched as if he were walking into a rainstorm, but it was a clear and sunny California day. He was like the cartoon guy with the little black cloud hanging over his head wherever he goes. I couldn’t help wondering if I would ever see Jerry again, and that thought saddened me.

Funny. I hadn’t expected sweet revenge to taste so bitter.

I headed back to the bank, depressed by the way things had turned out and longing for the day to end.

I needed to see Frank again. I
ached
to see him. To feel his arms around me and hear him tell me what a wonderful person I am while I pressed my face to his neck and breathed in his heavenly scent.

More than anything, I needed to convince myself I had picked the right man to share my life with.

As if I didn’t already know.

Chapter 8

T
IME
has a way of getting away from us when we’re happy. It also has a way of pushing our problems into the background. Frank and I were so nuts about each other, and so content in our new life together, that we actually found social anxiety playing a very small part in our existence.

I got into the habit of phoning Frank’s dad at least once or twice a week, and my friendship with the man grew exponentially. He did not speak to me of his illness, which was growing harder and harder for Joe to disguise as the weeks went by, but he told me many things about Frank. The 4-H hog that won Frank a blue ribbon at the county fair when the boy was eleven. The fact that Frank once had an epileptic seizure after driving a John Deere tractor for eight hours straight, an event not altogether unheard of because of the particular blatting sound that a John Deere engine makes and the way that sound sometimes affects the human brain. All news to me, of course, being a city boy. I had never heard the blat of a John Deere tractor in my life. And didn’t want to.

Joe had many great stories about Frank growing up, but he never once mentioned Stanley. I figured there was a deep wound there for him. One that he simply tried to avoid. And certainly one he did not wish to share with me. That suited me just fine. Stanley’s treatment of Frank had left me with a permanent hatred for the guy, a hatred even stronger than the one I already felt for him after he broke up my relationship with Jerry.

Mr. Wells never once mentioned his illness to me, but I detected a weakening in his voice as time passed. And the coughing increased. It was a racking, heavy cough that sometimes seemed to take him by surprise. When it did, he would often feign a household emergency just to get off the phone. His favorite was “My beans are burning, gotta run.” Then a spate of coughing and a gentle click of the receiver as he softly severed our connection.

On our three-month anniversary, Frank brought home dinner after work. Pizza and wine. It was Friday night and neither of us had to work the next day, so after we polished off the wine and pretty much slaughtered two entire pizzas, I ran out for another bottle of burgundy while Frank walked Pedro around the block a couple of times.

Pedro’s housebreaking lessons were coming along nicely, thank you very much. He had us trained to take him out whenever he was in the mood for a walk by simply glancing at the front door, looking wistfully uncomfortable, and tucking his tail between his legs. Worked like a charm. Neither Frank nor I had walked so much in our lives. The problem, however, was that when Pedro wanted a walk, that was exactly what he wanted. A
walk
. Nothing more. So after touring the neighborhood and tormenting a few dogs and maybe sniffing around a few bushes and barking at a couple of cats and humping a fencepost or two, which he always seemed to enjoy, don’t ask me why, we would return home and Pedro would then pee or poop pretty much wherever the hell he wanted. Under the table. On top of the sofa. Behind the television. Just like he always had.

Frank and I, by this time, would simply clean up the mess and think no more about it. It never occurred to us to wonder why we bothered with the walk in the first place. And Pedro certainly wasn’t going to enlighten us. He enjoyed his constitutionals way too much to jeopardize them by being forthright, even if he
could
have explained things to us in a language we could understand.

Pedro was undoubtedly chuckling into his Alpo about how easy humans are to train. And he would have been right. He had us trained very, very well and it had hardly taken any time at all.

Back home, Frank and I settled into the second bottle of wine and I could tell something was bothering him. He had been quiet all evening. Not one to beat around the bush, I forced it out of him.

“It’s Pop,” Frank finally admitted. “He sounds so weak on the phone now. I think he’s getting sicker.”

“I know,” I said. “Still no clues as to what’s wrong with him, huh?”

“No idea,” Frank sighed. “If he knows, he’s not talking. But it entails a lot of coughing. Dad used to be a smoker, you know. Hope it’s not what I think it is.”

I shuddered. “Cancer?” It’s what I had feared all along but was too afraid to mention.

“Yeah. Lung cancer, maybe. God, I hope not. But do you think he’ll talk to me about it? Nope. All he talks about is how wonderful you are. He won’t hear about me coming home either. He knows I’m happy here.”

My heart skidded to a stop inside my chest. “You told him you wanted to come home?”

I was sitting on the couch and Frank was sprawled out beside me on his back with his head in my lap. He reached up to stroke my cheek. “Not for good, Tom. Just to help him out for a while.”

“If you go,” I said, “then I’m coming with you.”

Frank jumped up and grabbed my shoulders. “Are you serious? You’d go back with me? I’d probably lose my job, you know. I haven’t been at the nursery long enough to rate a vacation.”

“There are other jobs,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “For me. What about you?”

“I don’t think Moony would fire me for asking for a few weeks off. I’ll just tell him it’s an emergency. Do you think your dad would mind if I tagged along?”

Frank smiled and settled back down with his head in my lap again. “He’s always telling me he’d like to meet you. I think he knows we’re an item. We’ve never talked about it, but Dad’s not dumb. He might be a little bewildered, wondering why his two sons both ended up gay, but he’s not dumb.”

“Maybe you should call Stanley,” I said. “Tell him what’s going on.”

“Stanley doesn’t care about anybody but Stanley. He never even calls home to see how Dad’s doing.”

“Well, if your dad’s sick—”

“Forget it. I’m not calling Stanley. Besides, I have no idea where he is and unless I’m sorely mistaken, neither do you. And even if I
did
know, I wouldn’t call him.”

And that was that.

Idly, Frank flipped over onto his stomach and began unbuttoning my shirt. Stroking my chest. Pressing his lips to my belly, licking the fluff of hair around my belly button. Nothing hurried, just sort of finding something to do while thinking things through. My dick wasn’t being so lackadaisical about the sudden interest in my anatomy however, and I could tell Frank could feel it poking him in the chin through my trousers by the little smile that made his dimple deepen.

He scooched up and sucked on my nipple. Gently at first, then with a little more enthusiasm. Nipping me with his perfect teeth. Breathing his hot breath on my chest. It smelled like pepperoni, his breath. I knew because I had my eyes closed, happily absorbing every new sensation as it came along, and the homey smell of pepperoni was one of them. Pepperoni and male arousal. I could smell them both. Yum.

Frank was still talking. I don’t know how he did it. I couldn’t have put twelve coherent words together, I was suddenly so turned-on.

“I think we should go, Tom. Dad’s been good to me and he’s all alone. I don’t want him to lose the farm. God knows what might happen if he gets really sick and there is no one there to help him. If he goes to the hospital, what happens to all the animals? Who’s going to feed them?”

I gasped when his hand came to rest on my closed fly and he gave it a little squeeze. Lordy, I wanted that thing open. I could almost hear Tom Junior dragging a tin cup up and down the inside of my zipper, screaming for his freedom. “How many animals are you talking about?” I asked, breathless.

“Quite a few,” Frank said with my nipple still in his mouth. His hands were sliding along my rib cage. Not tickling. Stroking.

Now
my
hands were beginning to move too. I had burrowed one of them under the back of Frank’s shirt and found the little patch of hair over his ass. I loved that spot. It was my favorite spot in all the world. Almost. I twiddled the hair there and once in a while I would dip my forefinger into the crack of his ass for a little external massaging. Nothing invasive. Just reconnoitering the terrain. Judging by the way Frank’s butt was moving around, he seemed to enjoy my reconnoitering. Or reconoodling, as he called it.

Frank pressed his lips to mine and worked his tongue inside my mouth. Even that didn’t stop him from talking. “What about Pedro?”

“Hmm,” I said, both in response to the question and in response to the heavenly taste of Frank’s kiss. “We’ll have to take him with us. We’ll drive. Cheaper than flying. What d’you think?”

“I think I want to get naked,” Frank said. And less than a minute later, he was. And so was I.

Apparently Frank wasn’t in the mood to waste time. He slid his tongue under my foreskin. Tasting. Discovering. He kept at it until my dick was standing at full attention, throbbing with my heartbeat, banging against his lips like a battering ram testing the castle gate. Geez. And I thought I was hard
before
.

“You ever measure this thing?” Frank asked with a smile, his gorgeous green eyes looking up at me even while my dick still prodded that beautiful mouth, begging to be let in. “It’s the biggest dick I’ve ever seen. Even in porno.”

I was having trouble talking. I usually
did
have trouble talking when someone’s tongue was burrowing around under my foreskin like a gopher.

“Is it?” I gasped. For some reason it always embarrassed me when people commented on the size of my equipment. Funny that would embarrass me when a tongue circumnavigating the head of my dick didn’t. But hey, that’s just me.

Frank was still on the sofa beside me, still sprawled out on his stomach and naked as a jaybird. While he worked on my dick, I gently kneaded his beautiful ass. I worked my fingers down between his legs to caress his balls from behind. Being a polite fellow, Frank opened his legs to provide me easier access. Dickwise, as in
my
dick, he had apparently decided to get down to brass tacks. He stopped fooling around with my foreskin and slid it out of the way as he took me deep into his mouth. It was Tom Junior’s favorite place to be. Frank always seemed to like it there too. I savored every sensation as he drew me in. Every moment, every movement. The caress of his lips and every flick of his tongue. Frank always sucked dick like he meant it. You could tell he was having a good time. And needless to say, so was I.

I leaned over to kiss Frank’s broad shoulder. His skin tasted hot and salty. I trailed my tongue down his spine, reaching out with both hands now to stroke his butt, lightly brushing my fingertips over the hair there, savoring the heat of the man, the plush softness of his perfect ass. His hot body was giving off the scent of desire now. He was excited. I could smell it on him. I could smell it on myself.

I closed my eyes. His mouth was like velvet around my dick. His tongue stabbed into my slit as if seeking a place to hide. My legs started shaking, just like they always did when he did that. I could feel him smile around me. He had noticed the shaking too.

“You’re dripping,” he said. “I can taste you.”

“I want to taste you too,” I said.

“Okay,” Frank mumbled, and without letting my dick slide from between his lips, he rolled onto his side, facing the back of the couch, exposing himself to me. I slid down sideways until my face was in his crotch.