Love on Site

by Plakcy, Neil

  “I am,” he said, and he yawned to make his point. “But I like having you beside me.”

  “You’re a goof,” I said, leaning over to kiss his forehead. He looked so sexy there with his glasses on. “Got part of that paper for me?”

  Walter handed me the business section, and when I finished reading it, he quizzed me about the articles. After that he yawned a couple more times, and I figured the only way I’d get him to go to sleep was to get in bed with him. I stripped down, turned the lights out, and slid under the covers.

  By the time I turned to kiss him, he was already asleep.

  The next morning after our meeting, I helped Walter hobble into his office. “I’ll be locked up in here most of the day,” he said. “I’m going to crunch the numbers and see if I can keep the project going if I turn over warehouse one to Heriberto.”

  “Can I do anything to help?”

  “Keep an eye out for any trouble and don’t worry about bothering me.”

  Things were quiet out on-site, and after a quick lunch meeting Walter went back into his office. His banker friend Sal showed up late in the day, but there wasn’t any of the backslapping bonhomie that had accompanied his previous visits.

  Sal left a few minutes before five, and Walter called. “I’m ready to get out of here.”

  “How do things look?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it right now,” he said. “What I really want to do, in the immortal words of Jimmy Buffett, is get drunk and screw.”

  “I can get behind that program. I make a killer mojito.”

  “I’ve got plenty of rum in the house. We’ll stop at the Publix on the way home and get some lime and fresh mint.”

  “You’ve got a muddler too, right?”

  “Would I be Cuban if I didn’t?” A muddler is a wooden gadget you use to mash up the lime and the mint and release all their essential oils. Walter was right—no Cuban household was a home without one.

  I left Walter in the car with the air-conditioning on while I ran into the grocery. I got the fresh mint leaves I needed, a couple of limes, a big bottle of club soda, and a bag of blue corn tortilla chips and some organic salsa. A big frozen box of miniature hot dogs too. If we were going to drink, even if we were doing it at Walter’s house, we needed some food to soak up the alcohol.

  When I got back to the car, Walter was furiously texting to someone. I didn’t ask who, though I guessed it was either Dolores or Heriberto. “I’m needing those mojitos more and more with every minute,” he said when he finished his message.

  “We’re almost to your house,” I said. “Hold on.”

  I helped him into the living room and left him on the sofa while I mixed up the simple syrup for the mojitos. When I was a kid, my papi used to drink mojitos by the gallon, and I learned how to make them by watching him. He’d heat a cup of water and a cup of sugar in a saucepan until the water was boiling and the sugar had dissolved, then take the pot off the heat, and the crushed mint, and let it steep for an hour or more, and then strain out the leaves and start to make the drinks.

  I set up my water and sugar, and while they were boiling I switched to a quick and dirty recipe for our first round, dropping a couple of mint leaves and a lime wedge into each of two tall glasses. I dug the muddler out of Walter’s kitchen drawer and crushed the mint and lime together.

  By then my simple syrup was boiling, and I took it off the burner and crushed in a big handful of mint leaves. I covered the pot and pushed it off to the side, and went back to the first-round drinks I was fixing.

  I added more lime and sugar to the glasses and muddled again. I filled the glasses with crushed ice from Walter’s refrigerator, then opened Walter’s liquor cabinet to consider my rum choices. “You have Havana Club? I haven’t seen a bottle of this since I was a kid.”

  Havana Club was the original Bacardi rum. The brand was one of the sacrifices the family had made when they fled Castro for the United States. It had an almost iconic status in the Cuban American community; it was illegal to bring in, and yet it showed up occasionally in Miami homes. “Don’t use that for the mojitos,” Walter called. “Bring me a shot of it while I’m waiting, though.”

  I poured quick shots for both of us.

  “Where’s my mojito, boy?” Walter demanded after he swigged his shot. “Get your cute little butt back in the kitchen.”

  “Blow me,” I said.

  “I will. Later.” Walter smiled devilishly, and my dick swelled as I poured the shot into my mouth. The taste was smooth with a residual kick. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine myself in Habana Vieja—which was tough, since I was born in the USA and had never been to my father’s natal island.

  I hurried back to the kitchen and finished off our drinks with rum and club soda. I stirred, tasted, and added a bit more sugar. When I was satisfied, I put another lime wedge on each glass and carried them out to the living room.

  “Salud, amor, y dinero!” Walter said, bringing his glass up to clink against mine. Health, love, and money.

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  Walter tasted the mojito. “Nectar,” he said and sighed with pleasure.

  I went back in the kitchen, put the hot dogs in the oven, and prepared a platter of chips and dip, which I carried back to Walter. Then I sat next to him on the sofa, cuddled up against his side, and we ate and drank.

  When Walter drained the last of his glass he asked, “Any more where this came from?”

  “Sure.” I stood up and went into the kitchen. I checked my simple syrup. It wasn’t as steeped as my papi would have liked, but it would have to do. I mixed up another round of drinks, and the oven beeped and I pulled out the franks in blankets.

  “This is a feast!” Walter said when I returned to the living room.

  “You’re seeing the limits of my cooking expertise,” I said. “My mami taught Del and Beatriz, but she always said I’d marry a woman who would cook for me.”

  I cuddled up next to him again, then leaned forward and scooped up some dip with a big blue tortilla chip.

  “I’ve spilled my guts enough, Manny,” Walter said. “Now it’s your turn.” He ran his hand up my thigh. “When was your first?”

  “I was like seventeen, I think. One day I was walking down Bird Road on my way home from somewhere, and I passed this X-rated bookstore that had just opened up. I had never been in a place like that, so I went in.”

  I sipped my mojito. I was already starting to feel looser, freer. I had never told anyone this story before, but I figured it was time.

  “Walking through the parking lot toward the store made my dick hard as a rock,” I said. “I went inside and it was so—I don’t know, mundane. Ordinary. Fluorescent lights overhead, and rack after metal rack of movies and books and magazines.”

  Walter sipped his drink as I speared a hot dog and dipped it in mustard.

  “I wasn’t really sure what I was then,” I said. “I mean, was I gay? Bi? Straight and going through some kind of phase? I never talked about sex with other boys, so I didn’t know if what I felt was normal or not. I walked around the store, past the movies with couples on them, and the ones with the girls with big tits and their legs spread wide, and I was like, so? My dick had gone down by then.”

  I smiled. “Then I got to the gay section, and my dick popped right back up. It was like, oh, okay, I guess I really am gay.”

  Walter kissed the top of my head.

  “There was this older guy hanging around the gay section,” I said. “Maybe forty or so, Cuban for sure, skinny, with these dorky glasses. He looked over at me, and he saw what I was looking at. He said, ‘That’ll make your dick jump.’ Then he kind of looked toward the back of the place, where the video booths were, and back at me.”

  I leaned forward and got another little hot dog. I was starting to feel the effects of the mojitos, and I didn’t want to lose too much control.

  “He started walking toward the booths, and he looked back at me again. I followed h
im, and when I caught up with him, he said, ‘We got to be careful.’ He looked up at the clerk, who was busy ringing somebody up, and he pulled open the curtain to one of the booths, and nudged me inside.”

  “I’ll bet you were a sexy little thing then,” he said. “My God. Seventeen years old and adorable.”

  “I guess so. You’ll see pictures of my childhood on Sunday.” I sipped my mojito again. “As soon as I got inside he followed me in and closed the curtain. He slipped some money into the slot, and a movie started to play.”

  “A gay one?” Walter asked.

  I nodded. “It was the first time I ever saw a movie like that. Two guys going at it. I was so hard it hurt. The guy reached over and undid my pants, and reached inside and grabbed my dick. It was wild. It was the first time anybody had ever touched me there.”

  “I remember that feeling.” He leaned over and kissed the top of my head again.

  “Then he sucked me,” I said. “I came like right away, but he swallowed it, and kept on sucking, looking at the movie on the screen and reaching down to his own dick. I got hard again, and this time it took me a while to come. He jacked himself off, too. Then the movie ran out, and he said, ‘Stay here for a minute so nobody sees us come out together.’ I did what he said, and when I got out of the booth he was gone.”

  I looked over at Walter. “I felt so, I don’t know, dirty. I thought I was going to cry.”

  Walter wrapped his arm around me and pulled me close to him. “It’s all right, baby boy. It’s all right.”

  “No, it’s not.” I reached up and wiped a tear from my eye. “I had something precious, and I gave it away to some jerk who never even told me his name.”

  “When was the first time you did it with someone you loved?” Walter said.

  I looked up at him through a mist of tears. “Seriously?”

  “Of course.”

  “In the hotel in Naples,” I said. “With you.”

  “Oh, my sweet Manny,” he said. “You make me want to be a better person, you know that? I want to be the guy you see.”

  “You already are, Walter,” I said.

  Mojitos

  Walter stood up, swaying a bit. “I think it’s time we moved this party to the bedroom. Help me up the stairs, and then you can come back down and make us another round. We’ll have those in bed.”

  I put my arm around his waist, and we trudged up to the second floor, Walter leaning on me and on the stair rail. Then I went back down for our food and drinks. When I returned to him, he had managed to take his clothes off, along with the ankle brace. He was lying naked on one side of the bed, and I was happy and horny all at the same time.

  I carried the drinks over to the bedside table. “I see you’ve gotten comfortable.”

  “Only one thing that would make this better.” He smiled and spread his legs. His dick was stiff and leaking precum. “You.”

  Just looking at him there swelled my heart—and my dick. More than anything I wanted to feel Walter inside me. I stripped in record time, stumbling as I tried to step out of my pants, and Walter laughed. I stood beside him and ripped open a condom packet and the little green circle popped out. “Green?” Walter asked.

  “I have other colors, if you prefer?”

  “No, green works. You can pretend I’m a Martian.”

  “There’s no way I could consider you a little green man,” I said. “You’d be a big green man.” I pinched the reservoir at the end of the condom shut and rolled it down over Walter’s dick. I squirted some lube in my palm and massaged it onto Walter’s dick.

  “Oh,” he groaned. “Come here, handsome.”

  “All in good time.” I picked up his right hand and squirted some lube into it. Then I turned around and presented my ass to him, opening the cheeks with my hands.

  “You are so sexy,” Walter said.

  I felt his index finger dart around my asshole. “Now who’s wasting time?” I asked.

  He jabbed his finger up my ass, and I jerked forward. He squirmed his finger around inside me, getting me all lubed up. When he finally pulled out, I turned and climbed onto the bed on top of him, facing him. Then I gradually lowered my ass over his slicked cock. My thigh muscles strained with the effort, and my asshole felt like a rubber band pulled to its extreme, but it was worth the pain to be able to see his eyes, which were glazed with lust. I felt the same way.

  “Oh yeah, Manny,” he said. “Oh, baby.”

  The pain in my ass eased as I got accustomed to having Walter’s dick inside me. I began moving up and down on his shaft. He used his hips to fuck me too, and we worked out a rhythm. Then he squirted some more lube in his hand and reached forward to jerk me off as he fucked my ass. Up and down, in and out. My thighs were on fire, but I felt so full, so complete, with Walter’s dick up my ass I couldn’t conceive of stopping.

  I began whimpering as my orgasm built. Walter pushed harder up my ass, jerked me more roughly, pinched one nipple with his free hand, and then he shot off inside me, and I spurted onto his chest. Both of us were panting for breath as I pulled off his dick. My ass felt slippery and empty as I slumped down beside him.

  Walter reached over for his mojito glass and drained it. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, “Just what Jimmy Buffett ordered.”

  “I don’t remember the ass-fucking lyrics,” I said. “You’ll have to sing those to me sometime.” I reached over for my mojito and sat up and drank. It was so damned good.

  We finished the mojitos, the chips and dip, and the tiny hot dogs, and we were still ravenous. I cleaned us off, then went foraging in the kitchen. We demolished a box of chocolate chip cookies and a half-gallon of mint chip ice cream before we fell asleep.

  I didn’t love getting up extra-early, but if I had to, it was nice to do it with Walter. We worked well together, moving through everything we had to do, and I delivered him to the site Friday morning. Once the guys were assembled, Walter announced we wouldn’t be having a lunch meeting. “I have an appointment with the bankers. I should have some good news for you all soon.”

  Rumors flew around on-site. For the first time since Camilo had begun letting people know that I was gay, guys wanted to talk to me to see what I knew. It wasn’t much, though, just that Walter was trying to work out a deal for continued financing. Sal Remedios arrived as I was returning from warehouse one and by the time I got into the trailer they were locked in Walter’s office.

  I tamped down a feeling of jealousy. Sal and Walter had fooled around as teenagers, but I was the one Walter wanted to be with as an adult. I was disappointed when Walter left his office leaning on Sal for support. “We’ll be back later, Estefani,” he said.

  It was the first time Walter had left the property without me taking care of him. But he was getting better, and soon he’d be able to get around on his own. I was scared that the intimacy we’d built would dissipate when he didn’t need me, but I tried to focus on all the good things—the way he looked at me, the way we meshed together sexually, the genuine respect I had for him.

  I was standing at Estefani’s desk gossiping with her about Jorge, the painting super, who was having some problems with his wife’s spending habits, when Walter and Sal got back from lunch. Both of them were tipsy, and Walter stumbled coming into the trailer. I didn’t rush to help him, though.

  At three o’clock, Walter declared we were going to shut the site down as soon as the last trades left. I went outside to spread the word. “Good news?” Adrian asked me.

  I shrugged. “All I know is we’re closing early.”

  Walter walked out of his office at three thirty, furiously texting on his phone, and I had to shove him gently to get him to focus on the wooden steps down to the parking lot. He kept texting the whole way back to his townhouse.

  I was frustrated and irritated. I wanted to know what Walter had figured out at lunch, but when we got to the townhouse, he said, “I need a nap,” and he sprawled on the living room couch and conked out.
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  I went up to the bedroom and read for a while—couldn’t even watch TV because Walter was in front of the set. He woke up around seven. When I tried to ask him about his meeting, he said, “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

  We ordered a pizza, which we ate together at the kitchen table. At nine, I helped him upstairs to bed, and he went to sleep again. It was Friday night, and if I were back on the Beach my roommates would be bugging me to go out, and I’d be complaining that all I wanted to do was sleep. Instead I was stuck at Walter’s with too much energy.

  I poked around in the books on his bookcase, I flipped through a dozen dumb programs on TV, and I even snooped around in his drawers, looking for porn. I gave up around eleven and slipped into bed next to him. He didn’t even stir.

  When I woke Saturday morning, the bed next to me was empty and Walter’s ankle brace was on the bureau. I sat up and looked around. Where was Walter? Then I sniffed the air and smelled coffee.

  I made a pit stop in the bathroom, then pulled on a pair of shorts and walked downstairs. Walter was sitting at the kitchen table with the newspaper and a mug of café con leche. “How’d you get down here?” I asked.

  “I managed. The ankle doesn’t hurt so much. I’m not going to wear that brace anymore.” He nodded toward the coffeemaker. “There’s coffee if you want.”

  “I do.” I poured a cup for myself, mixed in a generous amount of milk and a bit of sugar, then sat down across from him. “When are you going to tell me about what happened at lunch yesterday?”

  He put the paper down and picked up his mug. He held it cradled in his hands as he said, “Sal thinks he can arrange the financing so that I won’t need the income from warehouse one to finance the rest of the project.”

  “That’s great!” I leaned over to kiss his grizzled cheek. I liked the way his skin felt when he hadn’t shaved. I wondered if I could get him to skip shaving more often.

  When I sat back, I saw he wasn’t smiling. “What’s wrong? I thought that’s what you wanted.”

  “Nobody gives you anything without expecting something in return,” he said. “Remember that, Manny.”