“Henry,” he says.
My finger is running along the waistband of his jeans.
“Henry,” he says again.
I’m about to make the leap of unbuttoning his jeans. I look up at him.
“Can we just kiss for now?” he asks.
I’m disappointed, especially with how hard my cock is in my pants, but I also understand. He wants more than just a one-night stand. He wants more than just a quick fuck. He wants to find a relationship that is more organic than most, one that grows naturally and emotionally, that isn’t rooted only in the loins. I manage a small smile and lay down beside him.
We don’t kiss again, however. Gale just lies there looking up at the ceiling.
“I’m not like most gay men,” he says finally.
“Neither am I,” I tell him.
He turns and faces me. “I like you, Henry. A lot. But I think I want to say good night now.”
“Okay.” I reach over and kiss him quickly on the lips. “It’s cool.”
He watches as I stand, adjusting the weight in my underwear.
“Sorry about that,” he says.
I laugh a little. “Don’t be. It’s just a promise of things to come.”
Gale smiles but says nothing.
He walks me to the door and we kiss again briefly as we part. “I’ll call you,” he says, and suddenly I’m convinced that he won’t.
At the bottom of his stairs, I turn to wave good-bye, but he’s gone back inside.
I try not to feel shitty. It was a good date. We had some good conversation. And some very good kissing. Gale’s sweet, he’s sexy—and he said he liked me. A lot.
But he also asked me to leave. Maybe, in fact, that’s a good sign. Maybe it’s a sign he wants to get serious. Maybe for once someone will really want to get serious with me, commit to me, be mine forever.
Except Gale’s vision of forever was a little scary. I can’t forget that.
“Or his eyes,” I murmur to myself, remembering those liquid brown orbs that made my heart melt. I can’t forget those eyes—or that torso, or that ass, or those calves…
“Damn,” I say, realizing my lust hasn’t subsided.
I look up and realize where I am—approaching the Boatslip, where by this time of night, out in back, under the pier, a certain type of activity is surely taking place…
In all my years in Provincetown, I’ve never been to the dick dock. Jeff has; of course he has, what hasn’t Jeff done? He’s described it to me. His tales of sex in the dark always seemed sleazy and unappealing to me—all these guys lurking, occasionally pairing off to suck and fuck while the others gather around to watch…
I find myself stopped on the street, staring out beyond the Boatslip.
I can’t, I tell myself.
But inexplicably I’m drawn down the alley toward the beach, my eyes straining to see under the pier. There’s movement, several dark shapes in the shadows, though I can’t make out any features. Probably all trolls, I tell myself. Who else would—
I stop, chiding myself for being judgmental. One man’s troll is another man’s Prince Charming, Lloyd has often said.
When the moon slips out from behind a cloud, I spy my first glimpse of recognizable humanity under the pier. Not a troll, really, but an older guy, probably late forties, early fifties, kind of thick and squat with a moustache. Hardly my type, so I figure I ought to back away. What was I even thinking?
But then I notice someone else in the shadows.
Someone much slighter, much younger.
It’s Luke. I’m sure of it.
Who cares? Let him have his fun. I’d told him there’d be no sex for him at the guesthouse, so he has every right to seek it elsewhere.
Still, I am overcome with curiosity—and maybe more—to see just what happens to him under the pier.
I approach cautiously, staying outside, peering through the wooden diagonal slats that are nailed between the posts, ostensibly to keep people from entering. But slats have a way of breaking and never being repaired. I watch as one slightly inebriated man in nylon shorts steps through an opening and disappears into the shadows under the pier. I do not follow. I remain outside looking in, hoping my eyes will grow accustomed enough to the dim light to make out what’s going on not four feet away from me.
If Luke is in there, he’s been swallowed into the moving mass of bodies. It’s far too dark to make anyone out clearly. Only those who come close to the edge, like the man with the moustache, are ever even partially visible. I keep looking—hoping, in fact, in some twisted, perverted part of my mind—to spot Luke impaled on some big cock. Fuck the little twerp. Fuck him good.
Suddenly I feel a hand on my crotch. I look down. From the other side of the wooden slats the guy with the moustache has approached and is now grabbing my cock. It’s like an electric jolt.
“No,” I whisper and try to pull away, but I don’t resist very hard. He keeps rubbing my bulge, making me feel lightheaded. From seemingly some place far away I hear the sound of my zipper being pulled down. Then I feel fingers slipping inside my underwear, freeing my raging, imprisoned cock. Without warning comes the sensation of warm lips and tongue, licking and sucking me. I simply surrender and let go. I lean back, looking up at the moon. It’s not long before I come, shooting the first dollop into the man’s mouth. Then he stands aside, allowing me to watch as I shoot two, three, four and then five times in the moonlight.
Hastily I begin to zip up.
“Very hot,” the man whispers. “Just make sure you bake me some extra special muffins in the morning.”
I look through the slats at him but he’s already moving away.
Jesus Christ. I’ve just let Bert—the horny bear from Pittsburgh—blow me! I let a guest suck my cock! Lloyd will be furious!
I stagger backward through the sand, then hurry back up to the street, ashamed and humiliated. When I see faces I know, I look away, afraid my activities at the dick dock are plain on my face.
I can’t believe I just did that. Why? Why—after all my years of avoiding the place? Why—after all my earnest insistence that it’s true love that I want to find, that I’m not just looking for a trick but for one special someone? Why would I do a disgusting thing like this after spending the evening talking heart-to-heart with someone who could finally relate to my desire for uplifting love and commitment?
I have never felt so ashamed of myself. Back in my apartment, I shower with the hottest water I can possibly stand. I dread facing Bert in the morning. If I’d been under the pier and not out in the moonlight, he might not have even recognized me. But now he’ll tell his friend that he had me and—
Oh Christ.
He might tell Luke, who will then have something to hold over me.
“Fuck, fuck, and more fuck,” I say, scrubbing my genitals.
Worst of all, now I’m certain about something else. Don’t ask me how I know, I just do.
Gale is never going to call me as he said he would.
HERRING COVE BEACH
How cool would it be to be nine years old right now, able to act out and get away with being moody and surly just because you’re a kid?
If I had my way, I’d be acting just as surly as J. R., Jeff’s nephew, who’s trudging through the sand behind us and sulking because we wouldn’t let him stay home alone. He’s taking his revenge by tuning us all out, the headphones to his iPod securely plugged into his ears. Whenever we ask him anything, he just grunts.
Which is actually what I would be doing, too, if I had my way.
“How about here?” Jeff asks, gesturing around him, stopping about a yard from the shore.
Lloyd shakes his head. “It’s too far from the parking lot. My mother uses a cane, remember?”
Jeff frowns. “Well, if we keep too close to the lot we’ll have the whole fucking world watching as we say our vows.”
We’re scouting wedding locations. To say I don’t want to be here would be a major understatement. I woke
up in a foul mood, the memory of last night lingering, and the day has just gone downhill from there. When Lloyd and Jeff asked me to accompany them to the beach, I tried to say no, but both were quick to remind me (“guilt-trip me” is a better phrase) that I’m their best man. “You have to come,” Jeff insisted. “We’ll need your input. I have a feeling Lloyd and I won’t be seeing eye to eye on things.”
That’s for sure. Their first bone of contention was over the officiator. Jeff wanted a Catholic priest from Dignity, the gay Catholic group (“That way my mother will understand that this wedding is the real deal”) while Lloyd wanted his friend Naomi to perform a New Age, drumbeating ceremony complete with Buddhist chanting. Lloyd also wanted to hold the wedding in the back garden of Nirvana, but Jeff was willing to give in on Naomi if they could get married on the beach.
So here we are, schlepping through the sand, stepping around a couple of teenage girls in striped bikinis spread out on a large blanket soaking up the rays. It’s not even ten o’clock yet, and the temperature is already inching close to ninety. As they say around here, it’s gonna be a scorchah.
I haven’t told Lloyd yet about Bert. It was weird: Bert came downstairs alone this morning, his friend nowhere to be seen. It gave him a perfect opportunity to bring up our encounter, but he didn’t. He just winked as usual—and there was nothing in the wink, no added lasciviousness based on what happened last night. Maybe he’s being cool. Or maybe he was so drunk he’s forgotten? Whatever his story, I was glad for his discretion.
Then Luke came climbing up the stairs from the little room in the basement Lloyd is letting him use. He acted as if no harsh words had passed between us. “Morning, Henry,” he chirped. “Still keeping off the ice cream?”
“So far,” I replied, disappointed on some level that he had apparently decided to play nice with me. I’d rather our hostilities be out in the open.
To my added dismay, he’s proven a quick learner. Without needing any further instruction from me, Luke seemed to understand as if by osmosis when to gather up the plates from breakfast and when to stack them in the dishwasher. Then he was upstairs, stripping the beds from guests who were checking out.
“He’s working out well, don’t you think?” Lloyd asked me early this morning. I just grunted in reply. In truth, I was hoping Luke would turn out to be a loser and that Lloyd would can his ass.
So I’m feeling every bit as grumpy as J. R. as we trudge across the beach. “I’d rather be home too,” I whisper to him as Jeff and Lloyd continue pacing back and forth across the sand.
He lifts an eye to me but says nothing.
“Henry? J. R.?” It’s Jeff, arms akimbo. “Would you please show some interest here?”
“How come I have to show interest?” J. R. says, finally speaking. “I’m not your best man.”
Jeff approaches us. “No, you’re our ring bearer.” He folds his arms across his chest and looks down at the kid. “So you need to see where you have to walk when you bring us our rings.”
J. R. holds Jeff’s gaze steady. “I’m not being no ring bearer,” he says.
“What?” Jeff’s eyes seem as if they’ll pop out of his head. “We talked about this!”
“No, you and my mom talked about this.”
Jeff’s expression turns angry. “Stop acting like a brat, Jeffy.”
He knows J. R. hates it when he calls him by his childhood name. In response, the boy simply turns up his iPod and stalks off. Jeff starts to follow, but Lloyd restrains him.
I’m not surprised by the kid’s reaction. He let us all know in no uncertain terms about a year ago that henceforth he would be known as J. R. His first name is actually Jeffrey, named for his uncle and his grandfather. When J. R. was little—which is when I first met him—everybody called him “Jeffy,” but he eventually came to consider “Jeffy” too juvenile. I think there was more to it than that, too. I think he wanted to declare a little independence from his sometimes overbearing uncle and father figure.
There’s no question Jeff adores the boy—dotes on him, truth be told, and always has. When I first met Jeff, he was always running to Ann Marie’s house to catch his nephew’s first words or first steps or first bologna sandwich on video. One time Jeff roped me into dressing up with him as a couple of clowns and surprising the boy on his fifth birthday. Poor kid, he was terrified—and who wouldn’t be with two grown men in pancaked faces and putty noses barging in and singing “Happy Birthday” off key?
Now, after every trip he takes to promote his books, Jeff returns with books, toys, or computer games for J. R. For the past six years, he and Lloyd have taken the boy to Disney World every November right after Thanksgiving. Once I joined them, and on my desk I still have the picture of J. R. on Jeff’s shoulders in front of Cinderella’s Castle. What makes it so dear to my heart is that the ice cream cone the boy is holding is dripping down into Jeff’s hair.
It’s always been apparent that J. R. adores his uncles—and especially Jeff—with equal enthusiasm. Jeff and Lloyd have been the only fathers he’s ever known, since his real dad is in prison, doing time for theft. J. R. hasn’t seen the jerk since he was two. And it’s just as well. He’s grown up among an extended family of uncles and aunts, myself included, who have indulged and sometimes spoiled him. When Jeff’s mother once suggested it was too bad that her grandson wasn’t being raised in a conventional mother-father family, J. R. had one line of response to her: “I think it’s pretty cool. Nobody else in my class gets so many Christmas presents.”
But Jeff can be a strict father figure, too. With Ann Marie gone during the week, Jeff has assumed the daily parenting role. He makes sure that J. R. does his homework. He cheers him on at school ballgames. He monitors his television and Internet time. It’s that last one where he can be a bit of a nag. “Why don’t you read books?” Jeff has argued. “When I was your age, I was reading all the time. I was always at the library.”
“Then you were a geek,” J. R. always retorts, enjoying a chance to needle his uncle.
Jeff will pretend mock outrage. “I was nothing of the sort,” he says—but, of course, his movie posters and comic books stored in his basement gives the lie to that claim.
When J. R.’s increasing moodiness began to become apparent not long ago, Lloyd said it was natural. “He’s trying to establish his own identity,” he explained. Echoing Ann Marie, he insisted, “It’s just a phase.”
Now we stand watching him walk to the water’s edge. His small form is dwarfed by the magnitude of the sea. Suddenly his retreat into his silence, his dramatic change in personality, doesn’t feel like just a phase.
Lloyd lets out a long sigh. “He’s feeling we didn’t respect him enough by going through Ann Marie,” he says. “He’s feeling we should have asked him directly to be our ring bearer, and you know what? He’s right.”
Jeff isn’t quite so understanding. “He’s just being a brat.”
“Maybe so,” Lloyd agrees, “but his brattiness has some logic. At least to him. Instead of getting angry, let’s just go ask him now, the way we should have in the beginning.”
So we move over to him. Without any breeze, the waves are small and infrequent. J. R. is staring at his feet, seeming to dare the sea to reach his sneakers.
“J. R.,” Jeff says, not entirely conciliatory, “I’m sorry we didn’t ask you upfront.”
The boy doesn’t look up. Who knows if he can even hear Jeff over the music on his iPod.
“So we’re asking you now,” Jeff continues. “Will you be our ringbearer?”
Slowly J. R. lowers his earphones. He turns around and faces us.
“No,” he says.
“What?” Jeff shouts, instantly getting angry again.
“Why not, J. R.?” Lloyd asks, far more calmly. He stoops down to face the boy. “We’d really like you to be a part of the ceremony.”
“I don’t want to,” J. R. says. “It’s too gay.”
“Well, of course it’s gay,” Jeff says.
“It’s a same-sex wedding.”
“I mean it’s lame,” J. R. says.
“Look,” his uncle says, seething now, “you know I hate it when you use the word ‘gay’ to mean ‘lame.’”
“You know I hate it when you call me Jeffy.”
“Oh, for Christ—”
“Jeff.” Lloyd glares up at him, stopping him from saying anything more. He turns back to the boy. “Look, J. R., I’m disappointed. You’re my family. I want you to be a part of this special day. But if you’re not cool with it, then fine. I hope you’ll at least come.”
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