Victim of Love (2 page)

A splash of cologne, and I was ready to go. My gut flipped with anxiety. We’d be heading out to the other side of town, a more honkytonk section with a boardwalk along the beach and a glut of clam shacks and patio pubs with live music...and apparently one gay bar.

We’d all come on this trip for the same basic reason: it was coming up on the Fourth of July holiday, we had vacation time to burn, and none of us had other plans. So it had been decided, we’d extend our work trip, invite friends to join us throughout our time here, and have a bit of an orphan holiday together. Each member of the tribe had things they wanted to do and see while here on Cape Cod. Townsend’s girlfriend would be joining us eventually and they wanted to go deep sea fishing. Kamal was dying to hit the antique stores. Laurie had a brother she didn’t see much and he’d promised to come by and spend some time partying. As for me?

Tonight was
my
night. My friends were gonna take me out and gay me up.

And though it hadn’t been my choice, I was going along with it, not because I had a particularly urgent desire to prowl for guys, but because it warmed me that these people gave a shit about me. I didn’t admit this, as it was kind of an aberration. Most of the people I knew simply expected others to give a shit about them. But I had only-child syndrome with a side cart of abandonment issues since both my parents died while I was in college. A defensiveness had been born of having to achieve everything without a safety net, not to mention spending more than a few holidays alone.

So yeah, I got the warm fuzzies when people treated me like I mattered. If this crew was willing to step out of their own comfort zone for something they thought might benefit me, the least I could do is suck it up and try not to be a bitch about it.

And who knew? Maybe this night would be different. Maybe I’d meet someone special who wouldn’t give me the constipation face. Perhaps my dusty old fantasies of a dashing stranger who wanted to have long, get-to-know-you conversations before whipping his dick out would finally become a reality.

And if not? Well, a bar was a bar. I was on vacation. And there was always tequila.

****

I tried not to sneer as I watched the nearly-nude man spin and gyrate on stage. Aside from the billowing gold cape, he wore only a sparkly green thong and a pair of elbow-high, black leather gloves and matching black eye mask. The dancer had been introduced to the crowd as ‘Boy Wonder’, which made me
wonder
how this creature had the audacity to call himself a
boy
. While clearly no stranger to the gym with his muscular chest and arms, I could see—even with the eye mask covering half his face—that Boy Wonder was likely in his late forties. And while I personally had no aversion to older men, this costumed creature on stage did not appeal to me.

It probably didn’t help that Townsend had pushed us right up to the front, close enough that I could see a zit on the dancer’s plump ass, my eyes involuntarily drawn to the tiny red spot again and again as he twirled and shimmied to the pumping beat of ‘Batman and Robin’ by Snoop Dogg.

“So what do you think?” Townsend asked, elbowing me and knocking me off balance.

“Easy man, you spilled my beer.”

Townsend is an imposing figure. I’m not a small guy, but whenever I venture out with Townsend I feel like I’m with my bodyguard. He’s a chef and manages the cafeteria at the hospital where I work, and after countless mornings stumbling in bleary-eyed for my daily coffee and corn muffin, we became friends. He’s broad-shouldered and thick with a big belly, and would likely be considered fat if not for his striking height, which kind of evens his size out so he looks simply...
large
.

“I’m sorry, Olsen. I’ll buy you another one.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, wiping my beer-soaked hand on my jeans. Townsend’s size tends to make him clumsy, and I was still getting used to the man’s use of physical force when expressing himself—stinging high fives, hard slaps on the back, and the occasional elbow to get my attention.

“Are you having fun?” Townsend smiled at me expectantly, his brown hair sweated into spikes in the front. The barroom was stuffy hot and packed with people, most of them women, as I now noted.

Feminine hoots and hollers dominated the crowd as Boy Wonder left the stage, replaced by a pornographic cowboy in assless chaps with a whip.

“Are you sure this is a gay bar?” I asked, watching a cluster of women charge the stage, laughing and shrieking as the dancer cracked his whip and shimmied his ass in their faces.

“Of course it is.” Townsend took a step back to avoid the cowboy’s whip.

“Really? Because it seems more like a strip club for women.”

“Nah, that’s just a cover. Ask Kamal. He said gay men come here to meet up and watch the strippers, but it’s all kind of discreet and on the down low.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, I see. So it’s a super top-secret covert underground gay bar posing as a strip club for women.”

“Ask Kamal,” Townsend said.

“Ask me what?” Kamal approached from the bar with Laurie, each of them carrying tequila shots for the lot of us.

I accepted a shot from Laurie, who gave me an expectant grin, similar to the one Townsend had plastered on his face. “You having fun, Olsen?”

They were all waiting for me to tell them what a great place this was, or maybe how hot the dancers were making me. I didn’t want to disappoint them, but I wasn’t buying Townsend’s logic. I’d been to gay bars, and this most definitely wasn’t one.

“He thinks this isn’t a gay bar,” Townsend explained. “Because of all the women.”

“No, it’s totally a gay hangout, ask Kamal,” Laurie said.

“Yeah,” Townsend concurred. “Ask Kamal.”

“Stop saying ‘ask Kamal,’” I snapped, unable to help myself. Kamal scowled at me. “Sorry, Kamal.”

Kamal is a pathologist who also works at our hospital, an Indian man in his fifties. Since coming out to my friends, they seemed to have appointed Kamal my gay Yoda, as he was also a homosexual, and clearly older and more experienced than me. I usually kept my mouth shut and accepted Kamal’s attempts to mentor me, as I considered him a friend, but the truth was we had little in common aside from being gay.

He’d been in a serious relationship with his partner for decades, so it was a stretch to think he had anything to teach me, since he likely hadn’t been on the gay dating scene since the 80s. Kamal’s partner, an infectious disease specialist, was currently off on some charitable work mission overseas, which was why our friend happened to be included in this orphan vacation. He, like the rest of us, had nothing better to do.

“There are men here,” Kamal said, shrugging as he glanced around at the crowd. “They’re not going to be wearing a sign, Olsen. Just approach someone. Strike up a conversation.”

“Right,” I scoffed. “And what if they’re straight?”

“Olsen.” Kamal shook his head like I was being a stubborn pupil. “Does this look like the kind of place a straight man would hang out?”

“Yeah, actually, it does. It’s packed with horny chicks. The dancers get them all worked up, then the guys lingering in the shadows hit them up after the show, knowing they’ve already got a wettie.”

“Can’t you just relax for once? Drink your tequila,” Laurie said, tossing back her own shot.

Her words stung. My personal mission tonight had been to
not
be an uptight party pooper. But I had a particular quirk when I knew I was right about something, and others insisted I was wrong. It lit up the competitive centers in my brain and all but forced me to follow my theory to conclusion, proving it as fact. It was annoying to others, I knew, so I drank my tequila and then shut my mouth about it. And it would have stayed shut had Townsend not suddenly flip-flopped over to my way of thinking.

“I don’t know, Kamal,” Townsend said, gaze darting around the room. “Olsen might be right. I mean, look at that.”

We all followed his pointed finger to the stage, where the cowboy stripper was grinding his crotch into a woman’s face as she stuffed bills into his thong.

“Doesn’t mean there aren’t gay men here,” Kamal shot back, his usual soft spoken tone crackling with irritation. “Just because they’re not ogling the stripper doesn’t mean they’re not here. We’re practically in Provincetown, after all. The gay mecca.”

“No we’re not,” Townsend said. “P-town is the fist of Cape Cod. We’re on the elbow.”

“You don’t believe me, fine,” Kamal said. “Give Olsen an excuse to be a chicken shit and not cast his line so he can avoid rejection.”

I shook my head at Kamal’s metaphor.
Those fish are down there, mark my words! Just have to be patient and keep your hook in the water
. But that wasn’t how gay bars worked, and Kamal should know this. The beauty of a gay bar was you didn’t
have
to wonder if the right kind of men were there. It was supposed to be an enclosed aquarium, packed to the gills with gay fish...men...people.
Unquestionably
gay people.

“Hey, is that a Kennedy right there?” Townsend gestured toward a young man standing with friends near the bar. He wore a polo shirt and had chiseled good looks with a swoop of sun-streaked brown hair.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kamal said. “Not everyone on Cape Cod is a Kennedy.”

“No, I think he’s right,” Laurie chimed in. “That is one of the Kennedy nephews I believe.”

I lost it then, laughter pealing out of me.

Kamal frowned. “What’s so funny?”

I let the laughter trail out of me, then faced my friend, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Kamal. I know you meant well tonight. But if I can literally toss an ice cube right now and hit a Kennedy, we are so not
practically
in P-town. And we are most definitely not in a gay bar.”

“Oh really?” Kamal smirked. “Then what do you call that?”

He pointed toward the corner of the room, where standing on a stool was a little man—perhaps a dwarf, it was hard to tell with the lowered lights. He was making out sloppily with a biker type in a leather vest who stood alongside the stool, the smaller man tugging passionately on the other’s long, salt and pepper beard.

“Jesus,” Laurie said. “I don’t know, Kamal, what
do
you call that?”

“I call that two men kissing,” Kamal said with a triumphant tilt of his chin. He smiled at me. “Case closed.”

I turned my eyes from the amorous display in the corner. “Yeah. Okay. You win. I need the bathroom. Be right back.”

I have nothing against little people, bikers, or beards, but as I made my way toward the bathroom, I drew my final conclusion. This night out was not going to meet the gossamer expectations of my fantasies.

The gravity of my disappointment surprised me. That I’d truly
had
expectations was something I hadn’t fully acknowledged. Some small part of me, buried deep within the contempt of my earlier protests, had been hopeful. It pissed me off. I didn’t want to be hopeful that I’d meet someone special, that something unique and magical would occur to stir things up in my life. It was too crushing when it didn’t happen, no matter how hardened and weathered to let-downs I told myself I was. Speaking of let-downs, the bathroom was...well, a shithole.

Pushing through the scarred wooden door, I was happy to see only one man inside, washing his hands. The walls were cracked gray paint covered in graffiti, some new looking, others vintage, like the faded ‘Chet was here 94’ scribbled over the sink. I lingered at the sink washing my hands until the other guy left, then darted past the line of urinals and into the door-less stall to power-piss, hopefully before someone else came in. My modesty, I knew, was not considered manly by modern standards, but I abhorred public bathrooms. I hated doing my private business in front of people, and as a scientist I knew exactly what variety of microbes covered every surface.

Glancing at the wall behind the toilet, I winced at the large, crude letters written in faded marker on the tile. ‘STAND BACK. CRABS CAN JUMP SIX FEET!’

I was done. I needed to get out of this place, pronto.

As I returned to the sink to scrub my hands again, Kamal came into the bathroom. He gave me a weak smile, then sighed, shoving his hands into the pockets of his tan shorts. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m admitting defeat. This place is a dump. I screwed up and ruined your night.”

“You did not.” I waved him off as I hit the blower and dried my hands. “It’s no big deal, not like I was looking to meet someone,” I lied.

Kamal chuckled. “Well, everyone’s heading back to the resort, there’s a band playing at the main patio bar. Let’s just go get drunk.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

And it did. Until we got back to the resort.

The patio bar at Aurora Dunes was almost as crowded as the dumpy not-gay bar had been, and though far more polished and hygienic, the music and the dancing and the drunken laughter was making me feel stifled, and I wasn’t sure why. I was just plain off tonight, and having to hide it from my friends so they didn’t think me a killjoy only heightened the feeling. I needed a moment of space and quiet, so I excused myself and left my friends to their revelry while I headed down to take a walk on the beach.

What is wrong with me?

The thought lingered as I made my way down the moonlit, sandy path that bisected the dunes. While perhaps reluctantly, I’d been welcoming chaos earlier in the night, hoping for excitement of some sort to find me. Now just a few hours later I craved solitude and darkness, crawling back into my soothing shell like the periwinkles clinging to the wet rocks near the shoreline.

The beach was dark but the sand glowed white, empty save for a few silhouettes in the distance, evening walkers or partiers or perhaps lovers going for a stroll. But the spacious stretch in front of me was empty, waves breaking softly on the shore.

What is wrong with me?

You’re depressed.

I argued with my subconscious as I removed my shoes and sank my toes into the wet sand, letting tendrils of cold water from the breaking waves caress my feet. I was too young to be depressed. Shit, I had no
reason
to be depressed. It didn’t add up. It wasn’t logical. I spent years with my head buried in schoolwork to earn my degree, graduated at the top of my class, and moved to Boston from New York State upon landing my job at the lab. I’d made friends. I liked where I lived. Enjoyed happy hour at the brew pubs after work. It was a life. I was living, and it was everything I’d sought to achieve.