“I see.”
“Yet here I am,” Stef said. “Calling you every night. Letting my dinner go cold because I dig talking to you more than eating.”
“Whoa,” Jav said. “More than eating?”
“I know.” Stef’s laugh stuttered once, then he cleared his throat. “Anyway. I don’t know if that answers your question. My bisexuality is kind of literal. I have sex with both women and men, but all my serious, long-term relationships have been with women.”
“Bisexual but not bi-romantic?”
“I’m not bi-romantic, no.”
A long, taut pause swelled over the line. Long enough for Jav to get a few things squared away.
He likes me more than eating, he thought. But it’s not bi-romantic. Good. He’s a good pick for where I am right now. He just wants to sleep with me. This will just be a sex thing. Fuck buddies. Which is cool. I can figure out if I like it.
Bisexual but not bi-romantic. Maybe that’s me, too. Connect emotionally with women, for the most part. Occasionally leaning up against another man. Because I like it.
If I like it.
“You get one more question,” Stef said. “Then I’m eating.”
“When was the last time you were with a guy?”
Stef chuckled. “Funny you ask. I could’ve hooked up the day we met.”
Jav blinked. “What?”
“Wait, that came out wrong. I don’t mean with you. Not that I didn’t… Jesus Christ.”
Now Jav was laughing, glad not to be the idiot in the room for once.
“This is my goddamn fault for giving you one more,” Stef said. “What I mean is later that night, I was out drinking and this guy was making the moves. It was there for the taking, but I didn’t.”
“No?”
“I kind of had a writer on my mind. And on that vulnerable note, I’m off to get my foot out of my mouth and eat my cold dinner. Go think up some more dumb questions.”
“Call me later,” Jav said, but Stef was gone. No hostility in the empty air, rather it was the sound of shyness.
I had a writer on my mind.
A note stuffed under the door, a doorbell rung and a fast retreat down the block.
Come back, Jav thought, full of heat and questions for later. Stef didn’t call him though, and sleep was slow to come. Giving up, Jav stacked the pillows and opened his laptop, but not to write.
The light from the screen splashed on him like milk as he surfed through porn sites. First looking at women. Then, when he was good and bothered and moody, he looked at men. His mood ebbed and flowed as his eyes narrowed and widened. They lingered on one image. Got the swift hell away from another. His finger swept and clicked and scrolled, then stopped to consider before rejecting on the most petty of grounds.
Too posed. (If he wanted sculpture, he’d go to a museum.)
Too arrogant. (He didn’t like porn that broke the fourth wall.)
Too hairy. (Christ, dude, you look like a rug.)
A few times a picture or clip drew him in, pulled him up erect and curious and made him think, That’s hot. I could do that. But he found the line was fine between oh hell, yeah and oh hell, no. He’d be rapt for a rock-hard, breath-held moment, then he scoffed or snorted or winced and, nose wrinkled, he tapped out.
“I’m going to be one picky fuck,” he said, horny in the most aggravated way. Well, screw it. After twenty-three years of catering to needs, why not relish being high-maintenance? Get laid on his terms for once. Lie back like a king and get instead of give.
Of course, if that were his true goal, he could hire someone. Right now, even. Grab the phone book, turn to the Es and pay to have an escort come service him. Male or female. Or both. Why not?
Because you’re worth more.
And like it or not, these are your brothers. You were a sex worker. So are they. All of them making a living with their face and their body and their cock. They’re selling the same dream you were.
His eyes swept sculpted muscles, tattooed skin and pouting expressions. Sliding a shirt up to reveal six-pack abs. Peeling undone pants down lean hips to show a hint of what they had for the viewer. Poses he himself had struck when he was throwing down his seduction to the tune of a hundred, five hundred, sometimes a thousand an hour.
Alone in the dark with strangers, he was overcome by a profound and sudden sadness. Dad would’ve died if he knew what I was doing.
These guys are all somebody’s son. Abandoned or beloved. Thrown out or cherished. They all belonged to somebody once. Some of them belong to someone right now, and not in a good way.
He shut the laptop, dismantled the pillows and lay down, not wanting anything anymore.
Providence.
“Jesus, I can’t believe the shit I tell you sometimes,” Stef said.
“My ears are the round holes for your square thoughts,” Jav said.
“Dude, don’t make me like you.”
“Sorry.”
“And don’t make my dinner go cold this time. I’ll eat and you can tell me if you ever got hired for a threesome.”
“I got hired by married couples twice,” Jav said. “First time weirded me out because the husband didn’t do anything but sit in the corner and watch. Fully dressed, not touching himself, not directing. Just sitting there glaring. I hated it. Second time was more enjoyable, until the husband started touching me. Then I had an issues attack, freaked out and fled. Never worked with couples again.”
“Ever get hired by two women?” Stef asked around a mouthful.
“Yes.”
“What was that like?”
“Exhausting.”
Stef laughed in the middle of a swallow. It took five minutes to recover from the coughing fit.
“You okay?” Jav said.
“Yeah. Jesus, that was funny.”
“Tell me about the couple you and your wife swung with. Swung? Swang?”
“You’re the writer.”
“I’m off duty.”
“I don’t really like talking about that,” Stef said
“Why?”
“It seems cheap now. Embarrassing to look back on.”
“Forget it then, no worries.”
Stef regarded this opened door. It was all well and good sharing your funny stories, telling tales that presented you in a positive light. It was something else to recount one of your more despicable moments.
He could dislike talking about it and talk about it anyway.
He kind of wanted to.
“When it started, we made rules,” he said. “The four of us were so hip. We sat down and everyone discussed their boundaries and their triggers and their issues. Nothing was signed but we definitely made a contract.”
“What kind of boundaries?”
“Things like no outside dates, no pictures or video, no same-sex interaction. Everyone uses birth control, everyone gets screened for STDs. Blah blah.”
“No same-sex contact?”
“Yeah, I was odd man out on that front. Well, no, actually, let me rephrase. Court and Wendy were clear about no same-sex contact. Dan made a whatever-Wendy-wants gesture but didn’t put a clear preference on the table. And I didn’t realize the significance until much later.”
“So it was basically wife swapping?”
“Yes. Always together. No extracurricular dates, no private rendezvous. It shall be the four and always the four, at one place and at one time.”
Jav was quiet a moment. “I’m not sure why, but this sounds kind of boring.”
“It was.”
They laughed together.
“Okay, not boring,” Stef said, going to the fridge for another beer. “I mean, sex is sex, it’s never boring. But a lot of times it felt ever so slightly forced. Like we were trying too hard. Posing for an invisible cameraman.
By group fuck number three, I was losing interest. I needed something to focus on. So I looked over at Dan. Locked eyes, kind of throwing down a dare, see what his game was.”
“And?”
“He stared right back. Man, it was hot. Intense and silent but powerful. Because I’m fucking his wife, you know? He’s all up in mine and we’re just staring each other down.”
“Then what happened?”
“He called me. Asked if I wanted to get a beer. We went out but by mutual agreement, we didn’t tell our wives.”
“First rule broken.”
“Yep, which makes it so exciting. One beer turns into a second beer. It got flirtatious super fast and super easy. He was tortured and confused. I can’t do this, I can’t, I can’t, but sending me eight emails a day.”
“Oh my God, this was before texting.”
“I know.”
“You had to write letters.”
“Such a quaint time in history. So, the next time the four of us are going at it, it is charged. Dan and I are clearly doing each other through the medium of our wives. At one point he reached out and put his hand on my face. I sucked on his finger and watched it make him come and it was fucking wild.”
“Did you feel guilty?”
“Well. Yeah. In a delicious kind of way. And say what you will about why Court and I split, but I could always talk to her about anything. I told her Dan was pushing limits and it was breaking the rules of the arrangement. Court said I should end it. Or at least cool it until Dan could talk to Wendy.” Stef rolled his eyes with a sigh. “Or not.”
“Did he?”
“He told me he did. To add sucky insult to injury, he lied to me. Said he and Wendy talked it over and he had permission to explore the dark side. In hindsight, I should’ve called bullshit. It was too easily resolved for a woman with her kind of control issues. But I was hot. You do dumb things when you’re hot. Long, hot story short, Wendy came home.”
“You were at his place?”
“Another thing that should’ve tipped me off.”
“Sounds like he wanted to get caught.”
“My thought exactly.”
“How long after did you and Courtney separate?”
“Less than a year. I came out of that swing experience swung. I felt really ashamed about the way I regarded marriage. I lost all perspective. I didn’t want to be married anymore, but I didn’t feel this overwhelming sense of, Next time I’ll do better. I couldn’t picture a next time. I was down on love, down on myself. For months, maybe years, I didn’t even know what I wanted or who I was.”
Until now, he thought.
He sat at his shrine that night, a low table in one corner of his bedroom. A string of prayer flags above him, a pantheon of small god and goddess figurines in a semi-circle. He lit his candle and drew Guan Yin, bodhisattva of compassion, into the center of the altar. Her Chinese name was Guanshiyin, meaning She Who Perceives the Sounds of the World.
“I am so close to something,” he whispered to her, his voice making the flame flicker. “And I want it.”
He reached for the brass bell in one corner of the table and rang it once. One single sound of the world holding all his desire.
I want this feeling I have with him.
When I’m around him I feel honest. I feel authentic. I feel myself and I see so clearly who I want to be and the life I want to lead. And the kind of person I want to have with me on the ride. A curator and sailor.
A person who makes me feel like this.
“You going home for Columbus Day weekend?” Ben asked. He and Geno were running side-by-side on the treadmills, their feet and elbows pumping in a steady cadence.
“No.”
“Just gonna hang around here?”
“Yeah.”
Left right left right. Sneakers slapping through the background of clinking, clanking weight machines and rock music.
“What do your parents do?” Ben asked.
“Dude, don’t go there.”
“Why not?”
“You’ll be sorry you asked,” Geno asked.
“Come on. What, are they spies?”
Geno counted ten panting steps before answering. “My mother died when I was fifteen. My father and my brother died last July. I’m not going home for break because I don’t really have a home.” He glanced sideways. “See? Now it’s awkward. Magic.”
Ben hopped his feet onto the side plates of the mill, letting the tread continue. “You shitting me? I mean… Sorry, that was a dumb thing to say.”
“Yes it was. And no, I’m not.” Geno swiped a forearm over his sweaty brow and shook it out.
“I’m sorry. You literally have no home to go to? No family, no nothing?”
“I have a half-sister. She’s about twenty years older than me. I lived with her a little while this summer. She’s actually cool, I like her. But I had to leave because… Long story. I just had to.”
“Where’d you go then?”
“Friend of the family’s. He’s my father’s best friend. Was. And our lawyer. He handled all the estate matters and he’s managing my money until I’m twenty-one. I guess technically you could call his place my home. My stuff’s there, anyway.”
Ben hopped back onto the belt and started running. “No grandparents?”
“No.”
“Aunts, uncles?”
Geno didn’t answer. His chest burned with exertion and a strange embarrassment. Why didn’t he have aunts, uncles or cousins around? How did Nathan and Analisa, two only children, meet and marry and not build a great dynasty to take care of their own? Now, on top of all the other injuries he’d suffered, Geno had to explain why he had nobody. It was humiliating.
Where were his people?
“So what will you do for Thanksgiving?” Ben asked. “Or Christmas?”
“I’m Jewish.” Even that felt fraudulent. The Caans’ observancy of Judaism had been bare minimum at best. Geno and Carlos had a bris because their Caan grandparents would’ve died if they hadn’t. But that was the extent of the orthodoxy. Neither went to Hebrew school or had a bar mitzvah. The Caans lit a menorah and had a big Hanukkah party because Analisa liked to make latkes. They hosted a Seder because Analisa liked to gather with friends and cook and celebrate.
We were socially Jewish, Geno thought. Gazing at the tattooed Hebrew letters and Kabbalah symbols on his arms, he added, Or superstitiously Jewish.
“Dude, you know what I mean,” Ben said.
“I don’t know, go to Vern’s I guess. Or book a flight to the Bahamas or something. Be drunk on the beach for a week. I haven’t thought about it yet.”
The burn in Geno’s chest was reaching fingers into his throat and squeezing. Embarrassment morphed into alarm. The belt beneath his pounding feet unrolled like a long, lonely road into the future.
What will I do? Not just this year but all the years to come?
Where will I sit on Thanksgiving?
Where is my home now?
He was in free-falling panic now. His heart and lungs begged him to stop for air but his feet kept going. He had to run and keep running until he got somewhere.
I want to go home.
The little red henhouse beckoned from a glade in the woods. Expanded now with a second story and a porch. Triple the number of windows the light could stream out of. Within would be a big table, long-lost loved ones crammed in elbow-to-elbow, waiting for him.
I want to go home.
His feet ran faster. His heart was breaking.
I want to go home…
“Ben, would you fucking stop apologizing and play?” It was later that evening, and Geno and Ben were playing air hockey in the common room. A Xanax and a four-hour power nap put the floor back under Geno’s feet. A Valium was keeping it there.
“I just feel bad, ma
n,” Ben said.
“A bunch of tragic shit happened to me but it’s nobody’s fault. Nothing you can do about it.”
“Sure there is.”
“Like what?”
Ben stopped the puck with the edge of his striker. “You come to my place for Thanksgiving.”
Geno straightened up and put his hands on his hips. “For real?”
“Talked to my mom. She wants you to come.”
“You didn’t tell her the whole poor orphan tale, did you?”
“Not in so many details. I just said a friend was in a bind for the holidays, had nowhere to go. She was horrified and said, ‘Bring him here or I’ll kill you.’ End of story.”
Geno swallowed. “Thanks,” he said, the word thick in his mouth. “I’m sorry if I…”
Ben shot the puck over. “Stop apologizing and play.”
Friday of Columbus Day weekend, Geno and Ben were chilling on the couch, watching the Yankees play the Orioles.
“Look at you guys being all cozy,” a girl’s voice called. Natasha Kaslov bounded into the common room. Ben’s eyes lit up and his face flushed red. He had such a hard-on for this chick, he turned into an amoeba whenever she came around. A lot of guys in the dorm had a thing for Natasha. Geno was undecided. Sweet girl, but she had a loud mouth, pink hair and quite a bit of hardware piercing her face. Ben thought she was gorgeous and he was rabidly curious about feeling her tongue stud on his cock.
“Smile,” Natasha said now, leaning over the back of the couch, phone in her extended hands, trying to frame the three of them into a selfie. “C’mon, scooch in, guys.”
Ben leaned in but Geno leaned out, pulling the side of his hoodie over his face. He hated being told to smile more than he hated having his picture taken.
“Aw, you’re so shy,” Natasha said.
“He’s afraid you’ll take his soul,” Ben said.
“I would. For a night. But I’d give it back in the morning.” Natasha rubbed knuckles on both their heads and left, a trail of heady perfume in her wake.
A Charm of Finches Page 18
