The Thing I Didn't Know I Didn't Know (Russel Middlebrook: The Futon Years Book 1) (11 page)

"Um, that wouldn't exactly have
killed
me," I said.

"Sure, it would've! He almost impaled you. It would been like Vlad the Impaler."

"I don't think that counts."

"It does. It absolutely does!"

I looked at the table. "What do you guys think?"

"I don't think so," Misty said.

"Nope," Elliott said.

Felicks gave Vernie a helpless shrug. "Sorry."

Vernie pretended to be outraged. "I made Beef Wellington for you people.
Beef Wellington!
Fine. But just for that, there will be no after-dinner liqueur!"

*   *   *

After dessert, we retired to the living room where we talked for hours. At the end of every story, I was pretty much thinking,
Nothing even halfway that interesting has ever happened to me.

But eventually, Felicks stood up and said, "Well, this has been great—really—but I should get going."

"But the party's just getting started!" Vernie said. Then she looked at me and said, "This is a really dangerous neighborhood. Why don't you walk Felicks to his car?"

Queen Anne is, of course, just about the least dangerous neighborhood in all of Seattle. But I'd been about to leave too, so gave my heartfelt goodbyes to Vernie and the others, then followed Felicks outside.

"She's not very subtle, is she?" Felicks said once we'd hit the sidewalk.

I laughed. "No. But that's part of what's so great about her."

"So," he said. "Are we gonna go out or what?"

"I'm not really sure we have a choice." I thought for a second, then I said, "Can I ask you a personal question?"

"I guess so."

"What do you think of PrEP?"

"Huh?"

"You know. HIV drugs for the HIV-negative."

Felicks looked a little surprised. "Why do you wanna know?"

"I had this experience with a guy lately," I said. "A bad experience. And, well, before we go out, I just kind of wanted to know if we were on the same page." Part of me couldn't believe I was just asking this outright. I think it had something to do with Vernie, the way she talked. I guess her openness was contagious.

"Ah." Felicks scrunched up his face. "Well, actually, I'm on it. As of about six months ago—my gay doctor's idea. But that doesn't mean I'm a slut, and it sure doesn't mean I'm willing to risk my life on some new drug. I mean, I don't have unsafe sex."

"Yes," I said. "I'd love to go out with you."

"That was the right answer, huh?"

I beamed. "It absolutely was."

CHAPTER EIGHT

So the following Wednesday night (my next evening off), Felicks and I went on a date.

We met at the Pike Place Market pig—this metal sculpture that everyone in Seattle knows about, so people always say, "I'll meet you at the pig!"

We walked around the market for a bit, checking out the stalls of produce and fresh seafood. Houseboats in Seattle aren't really anything like they are in the movies, but the Pike Place Market looks exactly the way it should. There are stalls of perfectly arranged fruit, and fish mongers, and glass cases of fresh pastry and cheese, and endless racks of these fantastic flower bouquets (some for, like, five bucks each). And no movie can capture the smells of the market—the spices, the coffee beans, the roasting skewers of meat, the hint of the ocean.

"So I gotta ask," I said later, after we'd disappeared down into the maze-like shopping area below the market stalls. "What's the deal with Vernie and her kids?"

"Why is there a deal?" Felicks said.

"She's just never mentioned them before. It seems strange."

"How long have you known her?"

Now I was embarrassed. "Um, not long." How many times had I talked to her? Twice? "But I guess we have kind of a connection. I like her a lot."

"She's your Kathy Griffin?"

"Maybe." I wasn't surprised that Felicks understood, but I was glad he did. "I know it's none of my business. I was just curious."

"Well, Luke and I were friends in high school. I guess he complained about his parents—they were divorced. But it seemed like normal stuff. I don't remember anything specific."

"He hasn't said anything lately?"

"We're not really friends any more. Well, Facebook friends. I could ask him for you."

"No. That seems creepy."

"Why are you curious?"

"Oh, hey, look," I said. "It's Dan Savage." This is a really famous Seattle writer, and he was right across from us, pointing to a glass bong in the window of one of the shops.

Dan writes a really well-known advice column about sex, Savage Love, that's syndicated all over the world. He's sort of a celebrity too, always appearing on
Bill Maher
or CNN to talk gay issues or politics. Oh, and a few years back, he created the It Gets Better Project, telling bullied gay teens that, well, it gets better.

Felicks and I watched him for a moment, trying to be discreet. Dan is tall and thin with salt and pepper hair, older, but boyish. He turned and said something to the guy with him—his husband Terry, I realized. I'd seen Terry in photographs before—he'd co-founded It Gets Better with Dan—but I hadn't even noticed he was there. I couldn't help wondering what it would be like being married to someone famous like Dan Savage, someone who has an opinion about everything, and someone everyone has an opinion about.

"Shall we get some dinner?" Felicks said.

"We absolutely should," I said.

*   *   *

We ate at this place called the Crab Pot, a restaurant inside one of the waterfront piers. I couldn't help but notice that people were looking at Felicks. But why wouldn't they? Felicks was cute. Then again, maybe they were looking at both of us—I mean, I'm not exactly pigeon guts. We were two cute boys out on a date together.

The Crab Pot is a total "gimmick" business, but unlike Bake, it's actually a good gimmick. First, they come and spread butcher paper all over your table. Then they bring a big bucket of steamed clams and mussels and shrimp and crab and corn on the cob and red potatoes, and they dump it right onto the butcher paper. They wrap you up in a plastic bib, and then you eat it all with your hands, breaking the crab open with little hammers and nutcrackers, and dipping it all in seafood sauce or butter.

"What can I get you to drink?" the waiter asked after we'd sat down and before they'd dumped the seafood.

"Whiskey sour," I said, feeling a little self-conscious about it.

Felicks ordered a black Russian. That wasn't what he'd had at Vernie's, and I wondered what
that
said about him. He'd already changed his drink?

"Can I also get a glass of ice water?" I said to the waiter. "And some olive oil for the bread? Oh, and I dropped my napkin."

After the waiter left, Felicks leaned in and sort of smirked, saying, "Aren't we a bossy bottom?"

"Um, I'm not sure I'd make any assumptions about that."

"Ohhh. That's
very
interesting."

Apparently, we'd skipped the flirting and gone straight to talking about sexual positions. And incredibly, I wasn't blushing.

"So what do you think of Dan Savage?" I said. It was funny that we'd just seen him, because asking another gay guy about Dan Savage is basically the "gay date" equivalent of one straight person asking another if they wanted to have kids. Almost every gay person has an opinion about Dan Savage, and that opinion usually tells you a lot about how compatible you are.

"Well," Felicks said. "I mean, there's It Gets Better."

I nodded. Every gay guy starts out talking about Dan Savage by acknowledging that It Gets Better was a really big, important deal.

"Everyone says he's bi-phobic," Felicks went on, "but I don't really see that, at least not anymore. I mean, yeah, he's opinionated, but that's his whole shtick. He's hard on everyone. Although I hate it when people say, 'I offend everyone—that must mean I'm doing something right!' Yeah, or maybe you're just an asshole."

I laughed out loud. That is
exactly
what I thought about comics and pundits who said that about offending everyone—and for whatever reason, it's almost always the assholes who say it.

"I loved what he said to the bisexuals who say, 'I fall in love with
people
, not their genitals.' He was like, 'Dude, I don't fall in love with genitals either. I just happen to be gay, get over it. Bisexuality is a sexual orientation, not a fucking higher calling.'"

I sort of guffawed. I hadn't heard that particular Dan Savage quote, but it sounded exactly like him.

"I'm getting sort of tired of Dan's big idea about how everyone should be more open to open relationships," Felicks said. "What does he call it? Being 'monogamish'? I agree with him about how honesty is important, and that whatever couples decide between themselves is fine with me. But Dan is always, like, people aren't meant to be monogamous, people need variety. And there's sometimes this sense that he thinks that people who
are
monogamous are somehow repressed or immature, you know? And that's fine, I see his point, but it's such a 'male' point of view. Not even a 'gay male' point of view, but a male one. I mean, if straight guys could be in more open relationships, if more women were interested in non-monogamy, I totally think they'd go for it. But most women aren't. Before feminism, husbands got to sleep around because it was just 'part of their nature'. After feminism, husbands still get to sleep around, just for slightly different reasons. What about what women actually want? Then again, Dan is saying something that no one's ever really said before—the whole idea that couples can decide for themselves how they want to live their lives. And obviously there's going to be a big push-back for an idea like that, so maybe Dan's just preemptively defensive or something. I mean, he's a lot more tolerant and understanding of the people who disagree with him than the people who disagree with him are to him. You know?"

See what I mean about the Dan Savage question being a really interesting one, especially on a first date between two guys? And for the record, I mostly agreed with everything he'd said.

At that point, the waiter brought our drinks (and my ice water, and a new napkin, but he forgot the olive oil).

After the waiter left, I said to Felicks, "What do
you
think about monogamy?"

Felicks opened and closed his nutcracker. "Well, what do
you
think?"

"Huh?"

"I've already talked too much. You talk too much now."

What's this?
I thought.
A guy who's aware when he's talked a long time?
I had thought the "Y" chromosome made that impossible.

"I want monogamy," I said. "It's not like I think not being monogamous is a sin or anything. I agree with Dan that it's all about what you decide for yourself, that it's a question of openness and honesty. And I think it's stupid, the whole idea about how an open relationship could never work, that people would get jealous and all that. Well, sure, maybe some people. And I'm sure it's hard sometimes for everyone. But monogamy is hard too, right? It's not like monogamous people never have problems. I hate how so many people can only see the world from
their
point of view—that they don't ever try to see it any other way." I paused, and Felicks nodded.

"But yeah," I went on, "the guy I end up with, I want us to be monogamous. It's partly safety. I don't want diseases—none of the existing ones, none of the new ones that might pop up. And it's not a paranoid-jealousy thing. I just like the idea of sex being something special, something you share with the person you love. Maybe that'll change when I get older. But for the time being, that's what I want."

"A romantic, huh?"

"Yeah, I guess."

Felicks smiled. "Me too."

*   *   *

Dinner was fantastic.

First, it was just plain good. I love seafood, and there's nothing quite as great as freshly steamed (and lightly seasoned) clams and mussels and shrimp and crab.

But it was also fun to be eating with your fingers from this heaping mound of food right in front of you. For the first time in my life, I wondered if this was what people felt like when they came into Bake—that it was worth the extra cost because it was "fun".

But this was more than that. Eating shellfish on a date with a hot guy can be dangerously erotic, especially for a couple who had skipped the flirting stage and gone right to talking about sexual positions.

You have to peel the shrimp, gently pulling back the skin, revealing the tender meat inside. The crab legs are hard and slick, and when you crack them open, the brine sometimes squirts up into your eyes. And some of the mussels aren't open all the way, so you have to slip your finger into the shell, feeling the silky softness inside.

There was lots of dripping and slurping and licking, and everything got sticky fast. And all the while, I was looking at Felicks, staring into his brown eyes, watching his mouth, watching his tongue, and being pretty thankful that the plastic tablecloth hung down far enough that the waiter and the other diners couldn't see the front of my pants.

*   *   *

Afterward, we went for a walk along the waterfront. We both knew exactly where this date was heading—you can only slurp down the insides of so many mollusks with a date as cute as Felicks before these things simply become destiny.

But I could already tell that a big part of the fun of this night was in the anticipation. Besides, we'd just eaten. So we decided to ride this giant Ferris wheel called the Seattle Great Wheel, which is located on one of the piers. It was night now, so it was lit up in neon colors, all flashing in the dark, rising up over the black, sloshing abyss of Elliott Bay.

Each glass car seats four people, two on each side. The pier was crowded, and there was a line behind us, but as we were boarding, I asked the attendant, "Do you think we could get a car to ourselves?" And she smirked and nodded. I guess it was also clear to everyone else exactly where this date was headed.

Once the door was closed, the glass car started to rise into the night sky. We were facing into the city, looking into the lights of the downtown skyscrapers, and we were surrounded by the neon in the lattice of the wheel itself—green and purple and blue and yellow. It was like rising backward into a dream, except for the fact that the roof of the pier down below us was completely covered with pigeon poop.

Felicks and I sat side by side, staring out at the colors. When our car reached the other side of the wheel, we switched seats so we could stare out at the water. A ferry was leaving for the other side of the sound, a little island of light cutting across a literal sea of darkness.

"We never talked about your job," I said. "All through dinner."

"Yours either," he said.

"Yeah, but that was sort of by design. I mean, what is there to say?"

He smiled. I'd told him about my two jobs when we'd met at Vernie's, how pathetic they are.

"Do you like it?" I said.

"I do."

"And what exactly does a publicist do?"

He thought for a second, staring down at the ferry. Green neon shone on his face even as he slipped me a sly grin. "It's the job of a publicist to convince someone he wants something, even if he didn't necessarily want it before."

"I see," I said, nodding. "What if he
does
want it? What if he wants it bad?"