by K. Z. Snow
I’d never met Karl Bollinger—in fact, I doubted he was even aware of my existence—but I’d heard the name, had a vague idea of his age, and knew he occasionally practiced at a state prison. Those few facts had come up when Kenneth and I were in the process of getting to know one another. For the most part, though, he didn’t like talking about his family.
When I’d asked if his father knew he was gay, Kenneth had said, “I suspect so. After my divorce, anyway.” I found the answer odd. Having a parent in the mental health field seemed like a dream come true for a non-heterosexual, and it baffled me that Kenneth had never openly discussed his homosexuality with his dad. Hell, it baffled me that he still didn’t seem entirely comfortable with it and remained closeted in so many ways.
Tactless nincompoop that I am, I’d asked about this incomprehensible lack of communication. Kenneth hadn’t been too pleased by my probing, but he could hardly dodge the question. His answer had something to do with a “don’t ask, don’t tell policy” in his family when it came to personal matters. Karl Bollinger apparently considered it bad form to put such things on the table and force other people, especially loved ones, to stare at them. “My father deals with enough of his patients’ sturm und drang,” Kenneth had said. “When he leaves work, he wants to put that crap behind him and enjoy some normalcy.”
Normalcy. Yeah, he sure did need some. Holy triple-crowned shit.
My insides felt like they were being tumbled around in a bingo-ball cage. Trying to keep my hands steady, I sat in the recliner with my cell phone and hit the button for Kenneth’s work number.
Whether he was conversing with his favorite lay or with a client, his professional voice was always the same—starched with an insincere geniality that always made me want to start talking dirty. Hey, hot stuff, I was just thinking about that full sac of yours and how good it feels perched on my lips like a fuzzy little bag stuffed with Easter eggs. Only I wouldn’t have meant it. Just the notion of talking dirty brought Booker to mind, not Kenneth.
This couldn’t be a kiss-off call. Hell, I couldn’t even broach the subject. I’d have to wait until later in the week to tell Kenneth I’d rather he not come back to the cottage. The actual, official breakup would have to take place in person, once I got back home. Such things just aren’t done over the phone. So we simply chatted about what how we’d spent our time since Saturday—sans any mention of my neighbor, of course—as I eased my way toward the Big Question.
“Oh,” I said, as if a cartoon lightbulb had just appeared over my head, “I went to the hardware store in town this morning, and I started talking with a local couple. Retirees. The guy used to be a guard at Reese-Houghton Correctional. Didn’t you say your father does some work at a prison?”
“Yes, at that one,” Kenneth said in his office voice. “Half a day every couple of weeks, as I recall. He conducts groups or something.”
“Small world, huh?” I said blithely. “So, does he work pro bono?”
Kenneth coughed out a sardonic laugh. “You must be joking. There’d have to be some damned good incentive for him to forgo his hourly fee.”
And, I thought, Hosea Booker was damned good incentive in anyone’s book. “Hey, did you tell your dad about coming to Cloud Lake? I’ll bet he’s heard of it.”
“In a word,” Kenneth said, “no. Why would I?”
“I don’t know. Just thought you might’ve mentioned it.”
“He lives thirty miles away, Charlie, in a different county. And there are lakes all over the flippin’ place.”
“Yeah, I see what you mean. Anyway…”
I breezed through a couple more topics, so that one wouldn’t seem significant, and then went into my sign-off. Kenneth asked if we were still on for the upcoming weekend. I hesitated, sorely tempted to come clean with him. It made me feel like a deceitful schmuck, acting like nothing was any different between us, like I’d never felt dissatisfied or he’d never made that surprise confession or I’d never laid a single lustful finger on the gorgeous man next door. But I had to do it this way for Booker.
I told him I’d be calling again soon and hinted there were certain things we needed to talk about. When he wanted to know what things, my answer was vague. But at least I’d thrown down a little paving. I truly had no desire to see him anymore. Certainly not in a romantic context, and certainly not at my cottage.
Once I’d nailed the identity of Booker’s stalker, I called Carolyn. She worked second shift so, I figured, would be at home. I hoped she’d be awake.
Oops, not quite. She was still in bed. With Ira. I apologized profusely, waited until she grabbed some coffee, then hit her up with my list of strange requests.
“Hon, I really need a favor from you. I have to get information on someone. Academic credentials, arrest record, even allegation-type stuff that’s been thrown out or swept under a carpet somewhere. And I need it emailed to me ASAP. Trust me, this is important.”
I walked around my living room, hoping I was asking for the right things. If Karl was playing these games with Booker, chances were he’d played them before, maybe elsewhere.
“Trying to find out if Ken has a past?” Carolyn asked archly, then nearly knocked me over with a revelation. “He doesn’t. I checked a few months ago.” She sounded disappointed.
“Actually,” I said, “I need to know if Kenneth’s father has a past. Please don’t ask why. I’ll tell you another time. Are you still friends with that PI in Chicago?”
“Liza. Yeah. Charlie, what—” She sounded utterly bewildered.
“Can Liza do this? Or can someone else you might know? I’m sorry I can’t explain my reasons just yet.”
Carolyn had a lot of friends and acquaintances in law enforcement. Four years older than I, she’d been a dispatcher for eleven years. Her favorite uncle was a cop. Ira, her boyfriend, was a criminologist. How she’d ever fallen for me, I still couldn’t figure.
She sighed in a way that telegraphed her resignation. She’d accepted my terms. “Tell me what you can about him.”
I told Carolyn everything I knew. As an afterthought, and one tinged with guilt, I added, “I could use a search on a guy named Hosea Booker, too.” I couldn’t offer much more than physical stats, which I’m surprised didn’t register on Carolyn’s radar. At least she didn’t make any snarky comments.
“You have no idea how much this means to me,” I said. “I owe you, Carrie. You and Ira are welcome to spend a week or two up here anytime. I’ll even throw in a bottle of champagne and a gift certificate for dinner. Somewhere.”
“How about New Orleans?” She chuckled. “Just kidding. You know the best way you can repay me—by finding a new partner.”
It used to irk me when she fiddled on that string. Now, with Booker in the wings, the fiddling made me wistful. I couldn’t wait to see him again. Just thinking about how close he was messed with me in a way I hadn’t experienced since high school, when I’d wait at my locker for Ethan Hammersmith to stop at his locker. I was sure Satan had placed it next to mine just to taunt and torment me, because it was wicked for a boy to like boys the way other boys liked girls.
Christ. A year shy of thirty, and a guy had again loosed butterflies in my stomach.
I fired up my wireless laptop once I was finished talking with Carolyn and cruised sites that sold surveillance equipment. In under an hour, I’d found some useful pieces that would set me back less than a grand, overnight delivery included. It didn’t seem like a high price to pay to help somebody. I’d donated way more to various causes and charities over the years, even when I could barely afford to.
Lackadaisically, I slapped some sandwiches together and stared at those footprints while I ate. Did they explain why I was doing this? Why I was bending over backward to help a man I hardly knew? Maybe. The prints on my kitchen floor meant Booker’s problem had become my problem. Some stalker type had invaded my home and intruded on my privacy. And now it was my responsibility, at least in part, to get rid of him.
/>
Someone rapped loudly on my kitchen door, startling me. My heart lodged in my throat. What if I saw a gun staring at me when I opened the door? What if I caught a momentary glimpse of a scowling, fifty-something man before the crack of a gunshot deafened me and my world faded to black?
“Stop it,” I whispered to myself.
Taking a deep, calming breath, I got up to answer the door. The man who stood there was neither scowling nor fifty-something. He wore a blandly pleasant expression and was probably in his thirties. He was the satellite-TV installer. I’d forgotten about the appointment I’d made.
As he went about doing whatever he had to do, I considered going next door. No, I had to leave Booker alone for a while. I was about to retreat to the beach when my phone trilled. Grabbing it, I went out to the deck and sat down.
“Charlie, what were you getting at before?”
It was Kenneth. He sounded wary, suspicious. I silently cursed myself for not having checked the number before I answered. But what good would that have done, really? I couldn’t avoid his calls for the rest of the week—not if he was persistent enough. And Kenneth could be damned persistent.
“What do you mean?” I asked, buying time while I tried to formulate an answer.
“You said we needed to talk about some things. What things? I really don’t appreciate being left hanging like that.”
Fuck. I hunched over the patio table as I prepared to speak, although there was nobody around to eavesdrop. “I just think we might need to … reevaluate our relationship. Wouldn’t you agree? I mean, your little bombshell about—”
“God damn it,” he snapped, “I should’ve known you’d read too much into that. I told you the others don’t mean anything to me. What more do you want? You want me to swear I’ll be faithful?”
That wasn’t what I wanted. In fact, it was the last thing I wanted. But before I could answer, his tone moderated and he cannily erected his first roadblock.
“Okay, I’ll be faithful.”
Fuck. Double fuck. “Kenneth, there’s more to it than that.”
“What more? You think I don’t mean it, or I won’t stick to it?”
“No, that’s not what I meant. Well, sort of. Maybe what you said just brought to light—”
At that moment, Booker emerged from his screened porch, a notebook tucked under his arm. He strolled onto his dock and sat down, legs dangling over the side. He was facing north, the direction of my cottage.
My insides felt all runny at the sight of him. I lost my voice, my train of thought, even my tenuous desire to keep talking to Kenneth. The interruption didn’t last long, but it told me a lot about my state of mind. More, probably, than I wanted to know.
“Brought to light what?” Kenneth asked a bit stridently. “What else is there?”
I tore my gaze away from Booker. “Certain doubts,” I said. “I’ve probably had them for a while but just wasn’t confronting them.” Uncontrollably, my eyes shifted back to Booker. “Maybe … maybe I’d like to see other guys, too. Maybe it’s something we both need.”
An annoying, telltale crackle came through the phone. Aside from that, silence met my statement—the silence of a disintegrating connection. It unsettled me. Cold solidified in the pit of my stomach.
“You don’t mean that,” Kenneth finally said, his voice low and smooth and persuasive … but with a barely perceptible, serrated edge of desperation.
The tone was familiar. It was the kind of voice that’s supposed to coax people out of self-delusion. Carolyn had used it when I first told her I thought I was gay.
Hesitantly, I asked, “What makes you think I don’t mean it?”
“Because when I swear something, you know you can trust me. Don’t you, Charlie? Because you know I love you.”
I almost toppled off my chair. “I have to go. The TV guy is here. Don’t come up this weekend, Kenneth. Okay? I need to collect my thoughts. I think you do, too. We’ll talk more when I get back.”
The word love had never once passed between us, and for good reason. We didn’t love each other. And I knew damned well that if I hadn’t raised the issue of needing to “talk,” the word would have remained unspoken. Just as the emotion would have remained unfelt.
Laying down the phone, I looked in Booker’s direction.
Double fuck squared.
Chapter Ten
Funny how things happen, as my father used to say. Despite its inauspicious start, the rest of that week turned out to be the loveliest I’d ever spent anywhere doing anything with anybody.
Kenneth didn’t call me, and Karl stayed away. There was only spectral evidence, so to speak, of their presence on this earth. As hard as it was to let Booker know my “fuck-around boyfriend” was Karl Bollinger’s son, I told him as soon as we got together later that same day. He was incredulous at first, just as I had been, but there was no disputing the facts.
After I clued Booker in about the father-son relationship, I asked him, “Haven’t you told anybody about the crap Bollinger’s been pulling? Haven’t you mentioned it to your family?”
“No,” he said emphatically. “Hell, no. My father and sister went through enough while I was incarcerated. There’s only so much a family can handle, Charlie. Zander’s the only person I told. And what could he do?”
“But now that you’re out and your dad is better and your sister is married—”
“That’s all the more reason not to bring it up,” Booker said. “They’ve finally found some peace and happiness. I’m not gonna say, ‘Oh by the way, Pa and Rachel, my connection to R-H isn’t over. Some messed-up shrink keeps dogging me because he wants to get in my pants. And if I try to turn him in, he’ll get me busted again.’” At this point, Booker seamed his lips and shook his head. “Uh-uh. They’re not going to find out if I can help it.”
The second reminder of Karl and Kenneth came when the surveillance equipment arrived. Booker and I had to discuss its use and placement, and figure out how to download and store the data it might record. Then we had to set the stuff up. But to test the equipment as well as neutralize its negative associations, we recorded ourselves getting each other off. It was freakishly exciting. Acutely exciting. When we played back the results, we got off again. The next time we got hot in front of the camera, we decided, we’d use some props. The prospect excited us even more.
Most of the time, though, we didn’t think about the Bollinger boys. We put the whole mess aside. Our focus was elsewhere, and blissfully so, as we concentrated on getting to know each other and enjoying our time together.
Booker and I seemed like the only two people on earth, at least while we were at the lake. Most of the other property owners—and there probably weren’t more than a couple dozen—were nowhere to be seen. They normally came up on weekends only. There was some activity at Pumpkinseed Campground, but it never made its way over to our side.
We went into town on Wednesday. Shopped, had lunch, even took in a movie at a little theater redolent of popcorn and musty velvet. But mostly we shuttled to and from our own hideaways. I helped Booker with one of his works in progress. He helped me spruce up the shed and clean rain gutters. Every day we spent time at the beach and time making love, and evenings were given over to talking.
God, we talked. Over meals and in bed. On his porch or my deck, beer or scotch or wine lubricating our throats and loosening our tongues. We spoke of our pasts, shared the details of what went into the making us. We learned of each other’s likes and dislikes, triumphs and disappointments.
We kept working on my phobia, too, trying out different ways to loosen its grip on me. The attempts were always pleasant and usually successful.
Wednesday night, just as I thought Booker and I were about to retire to my bed, he kissed me and headed for his place.
“Wait!” I called out. “Aren’t you going to sleep with me tonight?”
“No,” he said.
“Why?” We’d been spending every night together in my bed, whi
ch was larger than his.
My consternation seemed to amuse him. “That wasn’t a rejection. I just have something in mind for tomorrow. You’ll need to feel a little deprived for it to work.”
“What is it?” A sperm bank donation?”
Booker only laughed and waved. “Good night, Charlie lark. Sweet dreams.”
I went to his place first thing Thursday morning, hoping to slip into his bed and cajole him out of celibacy. Except “first thing” happened to be close to ten o’clock—we’d been up late the night before—so Booker was already awake and about. I got a heartfelt kiss but nothing more. It only made things worse.
Booker immediately led me back to my property, sashayed onto the pier, and instructed me to stand on the beach. This was apparently the beginning of another “session.” I always did as I was told when it came to my water-acclimation exercises. So I stayed put and merely watched him. He sat on the edge of the pier, honing my curiosity, as he casually swung his feet over the water. Then, with a subtle ass-shift and hip-lift, he slid off his shorts and set them aside.
Son of a bitch was naked. His hand crept to his crotch. Subtly, he started playing with his dick.
We hadn’t had sex since the previous morning. So the sight of this gorgeous, tanned, hard-muscled man, sitting nude amid the glories of nature and playing with his own glory of nature, was not something I could ignore. I approached the pier.
“Stay back there,” Booker said.
I paused, scowling. “Then put your damned shorts on.”
“No. I like sitting here like this.” Cunningly, he smiled at me. “I like doing this.”
He lifted his cock just a little, just enough to give me a tantalizing glimpse. The lure hanging between his long, lean thighs was bigger than when he’d started fondling it. I wore a body-hugging, square-legged swimsuit, something Booker had picked out for me when we’d gone into town, and that band of cloth suddenly felt mighty snug.
