Between These Sheets

by Devon McCormack

  “I…um…I used to be married.”

  He tenses up.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything, but it’s just…not the easiest thing to talk about.”

  “That’s not a huge deal, I guess. How long were you with the guy?”

  “It was a woman.”

  “A woman?”

  “Yes, a woman.”

  He opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, but then closes it just as quickly.

  “We got married right before I went to Iraq, and we were together for about another year before she left.”

  “She left?”

  “Yeah. I…I was pretty distant and cold with her when I got back. Things just weren’t the same. Could never be the same.”

  “So it didn’t have anything to do with the fact that you’re gay?”

  “Well, I mean, I did care about her. And I was attracted to her.”

  His eyes widen, and he pulls away. “Wait, what?”

  “Is that strange?”

  The expression on his face suggests he’s not just surprised by the news, but distressed over it. I’m surprised. I didn’t think that would be the big deal out of telling him that I used to be married.

  “So you like going down on girls? That’s hot to you?”

  “I never had an issue with it.”

  He scans over me like he’s looking at a stranger.

  “Jay, I’m still me. That doesn’t change who I am or how I feel about you.”

  “That shit with the panties,” he says. “What the fuck was that really about then?”

  “What?”

  “Were you trying to dress me up like that because you’re more attracted to women?”

  “No. That’s crazy. I just…it’s something I’ve always thought was hot.”

  His startled expression doesn’t change.

  “Whoa, I didn’t think that I was going to creep you out about that part. I wanted to tell you I was married because it’s something I feel like I’ve almost been keeping from you, but it was a big part of my life.”

  “I’m gonna admit, that’s weird. Really weird. Not something I’ve come across before. So like, I don’t want to sound ignorant, but do you need that, too?”

  “What?”

  “Is that what the panties were about? You can’t just be with one or the other? Like would you need to bring in a girl, too?”

  “What? I’m bi, not polyamorous.”

  “But obviously you have a thing for women that you need to act out while being with a man. That’s what the thong was about.”

  “You’re thinking way too much about that. It’s a little thing that was fun and that I really wanted to try out.”

  “And it obviously has something to do with your attraction to guys and girls. Like some weird hybrid thing.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t really think so. It’s just hot.”

  His face is scrunched up like he’s disgusted with me. And now I feel self-conscious about something that I thought was just good, hot fun. “Stop overthinking that one thing.”

  “One thing? You have to admit the underwear fetish is kinda weird. And I thought it was strange already, but now that I know you’re into girls too, what am I supposed to think about that?”

  “Would it have changed anything if you’d known about it that night?”

  “I don’t think I’d have been as willing to go along with it if I’d thought you were thinking of me as a girl while I was in those.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about you as a girl. I was sharing this with you because I thought you would want to know that I was married. I didn’t think you’d care about me having been with women before.”

  “Well, I do. How am I supposed to satisfy that need? I don’t have that. I will never have that, and if that’s something you want.”

  “That doesn’t even make any sense.”

  “How does it not make sense?”

  “Have you never been with a bi guy before?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it’s not like I need both at the same time. It’s not any different than if I was a gay guy. Just because I might be attracted to maybe fit and twinky guys, wouldn’t mean I would need to be with both. I can be with just one person.”

  His shoulders relax, but he eyes me apprehensively. “You don’t think the thong fetish might be connected in some strange way?” he presses.

  “Even if it is, who gives a shit? You’re my boyfriend.”

  “Okay, okay. I just have to process it. Give me a minute. That’s a weird-ass thing to hear.”

  “That’s fine. I get that, but you do realize that nothing’s changed between us because of it.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  He runs his hands through his short brown hair, taking a breath like he’s still struggling with it more than I feel like he should be. I figured he’d think it was weird that I’d been married, not that I enjoyed fucking girls. I wonder if this has something to do with his fear of guys cheating on him. Maybe he suddenly just realized that I could cheat on him with so many more people than before—and now on top of his worry about cheating, he has to worry that he won’t be able to satisfy my desire to be with a woman. It’s a wildly misguided assumption, considering if I was gay, I’d be just as likely to want to have sex with other guys as a bi guy who wants to have sex with guys and girls, but I figure once he calms down, he’ll be more rational about this.

  32

  Jay

  Now I realize why Reese thought it was so important to come over here today.

  We’ve been playing house together, but there are things we still don’t know about each other.

  I thought, based on some of what we’d shared, we were open about so many things, but after the bomb he just dropped, I realize there’s a whole lot I still don’t know about Reese.

  Married to a woman? I’ve known plenty of guys who were married before they came out, but most of them haven’t identified as bi. They were just trying to fit in. Reese, on the other hand, could fuck guys or girls. How has that never come up before? I guess I didn’t give a shit what gender he was attracted to…just that he was attracted to me. But what the fuck?

  It’s not particularly a bad thing, but I don’t get it. It’s never been the way that I felt, so it’s hard for me to relate. And whether or not he wants to admit it, I don’t think it’s an accident that he happens to like fucking girls and wanted to fuck me while I was wearing the thong.

  He enjoyed it so much. I would have put it on again just because of how hot it was, but now I’m so fucking confused because I feel like I’m with a stranger. At least, someone I don’t know as well as I thought I did.

  On the drive back to his place, I’m quiet. Questions keep amassing in my brain, crowding each other, fighting for me to decide which ones are most important and which ones need to be asked first.

  “So you loved this woman?”

  “Her name’s Melanie,” he says. “And I did love her.”

  “And she left you?”

  He tenses his jaw. “Yes. That’s what happened.”

  “So you’re hung up on her?”

  He winces. “It’s been almost a decade since I saw her. I’ve moved on, Jay. I’m not the guy I was back then, and she’s not the girl she was. I mean, plenty of people get dumped without being totally hung up on the person for the rest of their lives.”

  “And you enjoyed having sex with her?”

  “Did we not cover that question?”

  “Sorry. It’s just…damn, I don’t even know what to think about any of it. Like who are you? Are there other things you haven’t told me?”

  “As much as there are other things you haven’t told me. I’ve lived enough that there’s shit in my past. Do you want me to make a list of all the people, guys and girls, I’ve ever slept with? I don’t think you want that any more than I want to know about all your sexual escapades.”

  But he did just feed me a pretty good question. “What about a percentage?”
I ask.

  “What?”

  “Guys-to-girls?”

  “Oh, God. I don’t know.”

  Why do I think that’ll make this better? I guess I’m hoping he’ll say that he’s leaning toward fucking guys. Then I don’t have to feel so weird about it.

  “Like twenty percent.”

  “Twenty percent girls?”

  “Guys.”

  Fuck.

  “Why is that a big deal?” he asks.

  “It just confirms that you also need to get your rocks off with girls.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  He sounds irritated by my line of questioning, and I admit that I’m not thinking all of this through, but what does he fucking expect when he surprises me with shit like that?

  “It makes a little bit of sense, at least,” I say. “I’ve just never had to think about if I like girls or guys. I’ve always known it was guys. What is that even like when you’re growing up? How did you know what to do?”

  “It was a little difficult when I was a kid. When I was in middle school, there was this guy I was really hot for. My friend, Ryan. When we changed together in the locker room, I’d always feel a little twitch, and I figured I might be gay, but then there was this girl in one of my classes, and I had the hots for her, too. At first, I wondered if I was just making it up. Trying to convince myself that I was straight. But I pretty much got the same feelings around her. I decided to go with whatever I felt and trust that whoever I was really attracted to would sort everything out. The next year, I started messing around with this guy at the housing facility where we stayed. I figured that was proof enough I was gay because it felt good and I really liked it, but then a couple of years later, I ended up messing around with a girl at school, and we started dating. After that, I pretty much only had relationships with girls and flings with guys.”

  “What does that make me then?” I ask.

  “Oh, shit. Jay, you know I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Didn’t you? Are you saying that this is some temporary shit?”

  “No. I wasn’t saying that. I was just explaining that it’s kind of all over the place. I don’t have some one thing set in stone that can simplify what I feel for people.”

  Tell me about it. That would make it too easy.

  “I like having sex with you. I like the time that we spend together.” He turns from the road and looks me directly in the eyes. “I like you, Jay.”

  His words offer me some comfort. I must be a real dick for interrogating him like this, but this was a lot to digest in one morning.

  We stop by Home Depot. He picks up some soil for the garden and puts it in the back of the SUV. I stop asking questions because I realize they aren’t getting me anywhere. Just confusing me—frustrating me—even more than I already am.

  If he’d told me right away that he was bi, I doubt I would be this confused, but it’s the fact that I feel like I’ve been blindsided by it. Not that he lied. We never actually discussed how he felt. I just assumed that he was gay. Any other guy would have just assumed he was gay. He fucks guys, therefore he’s gay. This is the first time in my life that it hasn’t been that simple.

  When we get to Reese’s, he heads out into the backyard to work on the garden. I tell him I’m gonna take a nap, but I can’t fucking sleep. Not after what I just learned.

  I guess it’s a combination of never being with someone I knew was bi and someone with a panties fetish that is throwing me off. If he’d just been gay and wanted that, like I thought, it would have just been this quirky thing that he liked. And I would have been eager and excited about doing it again. But now that there’s this whole other layer to why he wanted that, I feel a little dirty for having entertained his fantasy. And admittedly, I’m thinking, “Was he thinking about his ex-wife while he was fucking me?”

  He loved her.

  She broke up with him.

  He obviously enjoyed fucking her, too.

  I know that we needed this. That if there’s any chance of us actually being something serious, I have to know the truth about who he is. But why does the truth have to be so fucking confusing?

  I hop on my laptop and google everything I can about bi guys, heading to different message boards. Not much help. I try “bi guys” and “panties” and just come up with shit about crossdressing. Not helpful, either.

  I wasn’t expecting a google search to answer my question, but I was hoping to at least find some people who were dealing with shit like this.

  Maybe I’ll try later.

  Why does this have to be such a big deal to me? It doesn’t change that I like Reese. Doesn’t change that I want to keep being with him. Maybe I’m making a big deal because I feel like something has to be wrong. Things have felt too good, been too easy between us that now there has to be something about him that’s totally going to fuck up everything that we’re doing. That’s going to bulldoze the relationship we’re reaching for.

  I can get through it. Maybe not today, but I can figure out how to make this okay in my brain. I like Reese. A lot. And it meant a lot that he opened up about this to me. And now that I’m calming down, I realize how big of an asshole I was for the way I reacted to him opening his heart to me, being honest with me. His honesty shouldn’t have been met with questions and accusations, but support.

  I’m a bastard.

  33

  Reese

  Disappointed. That’s how I feel.

  I thought sharing my history with Jay would bring us closer together, but that was a fucking mistake.

  I carry a bag of soil through each row of plants, pouring liberally. When I’m finished I’ll go back around and spread it with my hands.

  Jay said he was going to take a nap, but I imagine he’s just replaying our entire relationship, trying to make sense of it within the context of what he now knows.

  The back door to the house opens and Jay comes out. The serious expression on his face isn’t reassuring.

  Is he coming out here to ask me some more questions? I don’t know if I can deal with them right now.

  “Hey, man,” he says as he approaches.

  “Hey.” I don’t look at him. I just keep spreading the soil.

  “Can we talk?”

  “Shoot.”

  “No. Like, can you set the bag down for a minute? I want to say a few things.”

  I stop pouring, squat, and set the bag down. As I stand back up, I look into his eyes. He doesn’t look as guarded or defensive as he did earlier. I’m hoping that’s a good sign.

  “I’m sorry, okay?” he says. “That was a real dick move of me. You told me something important, because you were trying to be open with me, and I just shut you down.”

  “That’s about right.”

  “I’ve never had anyone share something like that with me. And I wasn’t lying when I said that it kind of weirded me out with the…panties thing. I don’t know. Put yourself in my shoes. It wouldn’t go through your head at all that maybe it was because you were thinking about me as a girl?”

  I look over his body, his muscles tight against the T-shirt he’s wearing. “Trust me, Jay, when I fuck you, I don’t think about girls at all.”

  His lips curl at the sides, and it’s the first time I’ve seen him ease up since our conversation back at his place.

  “I’m sorry for being an asshole,” he says.

  “Thank you for the apology. And thank you for taking me to your place today. And listening to me. Even though you were a dick about all that, it meant a lot to me to tell you. And to learn some things about you. The only reason I did any of that was because I want to take things further, and we can only do that if we’re open with each other about who we are. I have to admit that you keeping your place a secret from me made me feel like we were delaying moving forward. And in the same way, that’s what I was doing with my ex-wife. By not sharing that with you, I was keeping us from being able to move on together. That’s important in any relationsh
ip. Getting to know the other person. The real other person. Not just this idea that we come up with in our heads of who they are.”

  “I get what you mean there.”

  I smile.

  “So all that stuff you said about Caleb?” he asks. “About moving down here because of him?”

  “I asked Melanie first, and she was more than willing. She did everything she could to help me. I honestly don’t know how I would have handled the amputation without her. She was the one who stayed on top of my appointments with my prosthetist. She helped make sure that I was comfortable with the prosthesis. When Caleb came back, she knew I was having a hard time mentally. She had been encouraging me to get help, but I wouldn’t. I think she figured that moving near him would help us both because at least we would have each other. But it didn’t do much good. Just two struggling guys trying to lean on each other for help, grasping for answers that neither of us had. And dying inside the whole time. It got even worse after he killed himself. Then Melanie and I both knew how much I needed help, and she tried to make me get it. I was stubborn, though. I didn’t think I could be helped. One time she made the appointment for me to see someone at the VA’s office, and I told her I was going. But I went to the grocery store instead and walked around for a few hours before going home and telling her I didn’t think it would do me any good. It was a long process, even after she left, before I got help.”

  “I thought you said you got help after that episode you had at work…when you talked to that vet.”

  “He did tell me to get help, but it was a while even after that. It wasn’t until a few months later when I ended up on the floor of my house for about a week after I left that job. I was having one of the worst episodes of my life. And I was thinking the sorts of thoughts that I know led Caleb to take his own life. That I wasn’t right in the head. That I never would be. That I could end it all and never have to worry again. It scared the shit out of me because I realized that I didn’t have a choice at that point. I was either going to do what Caleb did or see if I could find a reason to keep on going. It wasn’t easy, but I made myself go to the VA office, which was about as useless as you could imagine, but I was fucking determined. I wasn’t going to end up like Caleb. And if I was, I was at least going to die having fought my ass off to live.”