Strawberries for Dessert

by Marie Sexton

  You know how I’ve lived in the past. If I told you now that I would have no other lovers but you, would you have faith in me?”

  I wanted to say yes. I wanted to say that I would trust him. But would I? Six months with him on the other side of the country or halfway around the world. Would I trust that he was alone all those nights?

  “And what about you?” he went on, his voice a strained whisper.

  “Four months from now, when I’m still not home, will you wait for me? Or will you find somebody else to share your bed?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, and his tears started to come faster.

  “I do.” He pushed my hands away, turned away from me to wipe his eyes. “Either you’ll assume I’m being unfaithful and you’ll be bitter and angry, or you’ll get tired of waiting for me and you’ll find somebody else. Either way, one day I’ll come home, and you’ll be gone.”

  “You don’t know that it would be that way.”

  “I do know, Jon. That’s how it always works.”

  “You told me you hadn’t ever tried.”

  “I lied. And I can’t go through that, Jon. Not again.”

  I took his arm and turned him toward me. “I don’t want this to end, Cole. Please don’t do this. I lov—”

  “Don’t say it!” he whispered, putting his fingertips against my lips to quiet me. There was something like panic in his eyes. “Please don’t say it,” he said again, pleading.

  “Cole—”

  “We should never have let it go this far.”

  “I don’t want you to go, Cole. I don’t want this to be over. Please don’t do this. I can’t believe that there are no other options.”

  His tears were coming faster now, but he didn’t make a move to hide them from me or to wipe them away. “There’s one other way,” he said. “Do you want to hear it?”

  “Of course.”

  “You won’t like it.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  He didn’t believe me, I could tell. But he took a deep breath and said, “Come with me.”

  “Come with you where?”

  He hesitated just a second, then said, “Everywhere.”

  I had to think for a bit about what he was saying, and once it dawned on me, I felt anger stirring in my breast. I let go of him and took a step back, and I saw in his eyes that it was what he expected.

  “You mean forget about working and just travel with you?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “We’ve already talked about this once, Cole. I will not follow you around like a kept boy and live off of your charity.”

  “It’s not charity, Jon.”

  “It will look that way to everybody else.” My voice was getting louder.

  “It doesn’t matter what other people—”

  “How could I even hold my head up, Cole?”

  “If I were straight, everybody would expect me to support my wife. How is this—”

  “A wife?” I snapped, yelling now, and he winced, but I couldn’t stop. “Is that what you want?”

  “You misunderstood. I only meant—”

  “And shall I have dinner waiting for you when you come home, too? Or is that still your job? Shall I call you the wife, then?” He winced at that, and I knew I had hurt him. But I was too angry to take it back.

  He stepped closer to me, although his expression was wary. “I have a life that most people envy, Jon. I can go anywhere. I can do anything. I have more money than I can ever spend.” He put one trembling hand against my cheek. “All I want to do is share it with you.

  All you have to do is say yes.”

  I loved him. God, I loved him so much I wondered how my chest didn’t burst open from the force of it. But I couldn’t imagine doing what he asked. I couldn’t imagine knowing that I had nothing of my own, knowing that I was dependent upon him for absolutely everything.

  “I can’t live like that.” I tried to make my voice gentle, but I might as well have slapped him. His breath caught in his throat. He closed his eyes and turned away from me, but not before I saw what he was trying to hide from me. He was ashamed. “Cole—” I started to reach for him, but he flinched away and held a hand up to stop me.

  “You asked me once why I act the way I do. This is why, Jon.

  Because being flamboyant and eccentric is exactly what’s expected of me, and although people may laugh, they have a certain amount of respect for my ability to not care about what they think. But if I let that go, Jon, this is all that’s left. I’m a fool, and I’m a coward. And I’m weak. And that’s the one thing a gay man is not allowed to be.”

  “I don’t underst—” But he held up his hand again to stop me.

  “I’d like you to leave now.” His voice was torn. It was almost his real voice, soft and quiet, yet choked with tears. But I could also hear the cadence of it changing again; the small lilt being forced back in. He kept his back to me and crossed over to the table. He picked up his wine and downed all that was left in the glass.

  “Can we talk about this, Cole? Please?”

  “There’s really nothing left to say.” It was still another moment before he turned to face me, but when he did, the affectation was there.

  His walls were firmly in place. He leaned back against the table and cocked his head to the right so his bangs fell away from his eyes. There were still tears on his cheeks, but his eyes were dry. “My plane leaves in five hours. I think you know where the door is, darling.”

  Date: June 22

  From: Cole

  To: Jared

  It’s over. I finally did it. I feel certain that it was the right decision. I just wish it didn’t hurt so much.

  I miss him.

  I WOKE an indeterminate number of days later to somebody ringing my doorbell. I had absolutely no idea what day it was. A glance at my watch told me that it was four o’clock in the afternoon. I was still in bed. I pulled the covers over my head and tried to go back to sleep before I could think about whatever it was that had reduced me to this state.

  The doorbell rang again. I didn’t want to answer it.

  It was too late, though. The truth hit me hard, just like it did every time I surfaced: Cole was gone. That was why I was lying in bed with an empty hole in my chest, wishing I could slip back into oblivion.

  Whoever was on my front porch, waking me from my self-induced stupor, I knew it couldn’t possibly be him. And there was nobody else in the world I wanted to see.

  It rang again.

  Whoever they were, they were persistent. And I was already awake. With a groan, I dragged myself out of bed. I found a pair of sweats and a T-shirt on the floor and put them on. I glanced in the mirror on the way to the door.

  I was a mess.

  There was really no other way to put it. I hadn’t shaved in three days. I hadn’t been out running in longer than that. I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to make it lie flat. I was trying to remember if I had ever showered yesterday.

  The doorbell rang again.

  “I’m coming!” I yelled, and gave up on the idea of my hair. It was going to take more than a comb to disguise the fact that I was falling apart. I finally made it to the door and opened it.

  It was Julia. She had a casserole dish in one hand and a six-pack of beer in the other. “For Christ’s sake, Jon,” she said as she pushed past me into the house, “go clean yourself up while I put this in the oven.”

  “Julia, I’m really not in the mood—”

  “Not in the mood to do anything but hide in your house and wallow alone in your misery?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Too fucking bad. You can resume your pity party with me, after you’ve made yourself human again.”

  I didn’t have the energy to argue. I showered and put on jeans and a clean shirt. I debated shaving, but then Julia called out, “It’s ready!”

  I wandered out of the bedroom and sat down at the dining room table. “When was the last time you ate?” she
asked as she put a bowl of something unidentifiable in front of me.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “It must have been yesterday.”

  She tousled my hair like I was a child. “Eat,” she said. “I’ll put some laundry in for you.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I know, Jon. Shut up and eat.”

  I looked at whatever was in the bowl. I tried not to think about the last time somebody had cooked for me. I tried not to think about sautéed pasta with lobster or cioppino or what wine went with each one. I looked at the empty chair on the opposite side of the table and tried not to wonder where he was or what he was doing. I felt myself wanting to cry again, and I pushed it down, fought it back, and made myself take a bite.

  It was good. It was chicken and rice, and I wasn’t sure what else, but by my third bite, I realized I was starving. I finished the entire bowl and went into the kitchen for seconds. Julia was there, working on the dishes.

  “You really don’t need to do that,” I said as she put more of the casserole in my bowl.

  “I won’t be making a habit of it,” she said as she handed it to me.

  “I’m just here to get you back on your feet.”

  She emerged from the kitchen as I was finishing the second helping of chicken-mush. “Come on,” she said, handing me a beer, and I followed her into the living room. She opened a beer for herself and put the rest of the six-pack on the coffee table in between us. “Tell me what happened,” she said as she sat down in the armchair opposite from my spot on the couch.

  Having to say the words made a lump form in my throat, and I had to count to five three times before I could myself say, “He left me.”

  “What did you do?” she asked.

  “Why do you assume it was my fault?” I asked defensively.

  “Because he’s the one who left.”

  Fair point. I opened the beer and downed half of it at once. It wasn’t even a micro-brew. It was some kind of weak mass-produced crap, and I wondered if a six-pack was enough to help me forget again.

  Just for one more night.

  “Well?” she said, and I sighed.

  “I honestly don’t know. We didn’t fight. Everything was fine.

  More than fine. It was…. It was….” And I had to stop before I started to cry again. I finished the beer while I got myself under control again.

  “He had to leave town,” I finally said, as I opened a second one.

  “So he’s coming back?” she asked in confusion.

  “No. At least, not to me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Bullshit, Jon. Tell me.”

  I finished the second beer too. I was starting to regret having eaten so much. On an empty stomach, two piss-poor beers might have at least been enough to give me a buzz. “He’s too restless to stay in one place, but he assumes that if he’s traveling, and I’m here, it will end.

  He says I’ll get tired of waiting or that I’ll doubt him.”

  “And so he left?” she asked in disbelief.

  “Yes.” I opened a third beer, telling myself I would make this one last. “I guess he decided it was better to end it now than to stick around and watch it all fall apart.”

  “And there aren’t other options?”

  I almost laughed. “That’s exactly what I asked him.”

  “And?”

  “And he said the only other option was for me to go with him.”

  “Well,” she said with obvious indignation, “why the hell didn’t you?”

  “I can’t afford to live the way he does, Julia.”

  “And what was his answer to that?”

  “He said he would support me.”

  “So what exactly is the problem, Jon?”

  “The problem,” I said in annoyance, “is that it’s absurd! Just because he has money, I’m supposed to swallow my pride and follow him around like some kind of pet?”

  “So let me get this straight. He loves you so much that he offered to support you, just so the two of you could be together.”

  “I guess so. But—”

  “But you’re too proud to say yes.”

  “How could I even face myself in the mirror every morning?”

  “Is it really so disgraceful,” she asked with a surprising amount of venom in her voice, “to be supported by somebody who loves you?”

  “To be unwilling to support yourself when you’re perfectly capable? Yes, it’s disgraceful. And absolutely humiliating.”

  She slammed her beer down on the coffee table and stood up.

  “Fine!” She started looking around on the floor for her shoes.

  “Why are you mad?”

  “I had no idea you thought so little of me, Jon!” she said, not looking at me. Her sandals had somehow ended up under her chair, and she bent down to retrieve them.

  “You? I thought we were talking about me!”

  “My husband chooses to support me financially. Does that make me a disgrace, too, Jon? Should I feel humiliated?”

  Oh shit. I couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to me that she would take my words personally. I felt like there was a giant cliff right beneath my feet and I was wobbling, trying to figure out which way I had to lean to avoid falling off. The problem was she wasn’t giving me enough time. “That’s different, Julia.”

  She turned to face me. She had one sandal on, and the second one in her hand. “Why?”

  “Because you’re a woman.”

  I knew immediately, based on the look on her face, that that was the way wrong answer. “Excuse me?” she said, her voice going up in volume. “What did you just say to me?”

  “No. I mean, you’re not a woman! I mean, you are a woman, but not like a regular woman!” Her eyes got bigger, and I was almost surprised I wasn’t being vaporized by the rage burning in them. “Wait, that’s not what I meant!”

  She pointed her sandal at me like some kind of weapon. “You’re an asshole.”

  “Julia, I only meant that it’s not the same thing at all! Not because you’re a woman, but because you’re a… a….” I stopped short, feeling myself tipping over the edge of that cliff.

  “A what?” she hissed. The word that had popped into my head was “housewife,” but I wasn’t sure if I should say that or not. Was “housewife” a politically correct term? I was racking my brain, trying to think of a better word, but I was too slow. “A breeder, Jon?” she asked, her voice like ice. “Is that the term you’re looking for?”

  “What? No! I wasn’t going to—”

  “Bullshit!” she said advancing on me, with her sandal still in her right hand. “You think you’re so much better than me? Is that what you think?”

  “No!”

  “Well, fuck you!” she yelled, and she smacked me hard on the arm with the sole of her sandal.

  “Ow! Julia, what the hell? I never said any of those things!”

  “You think your stupid pride is more important than love? Then you deserve to be miserable.” She finally put on her second sandal, and I breathed a mental sigh of relief that she wouldn’t be able to smack me with it again. She grabbed the remainder of the six-pack off of the table with one hand, reached out with the other hand and pulled my half-full can out of my hand. “You’re an idiot,” she said. And then she left.

  I sat there for a minute trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. And then I gave up and went back to bed.

  I DIDN’T allow myself to sink back into the pit Julia had pulled me out of. The next morning I got up and made myself go for a run, for the first time in a week. Afterward, I showered and shaved, then went down the street where I picked up donuts and coffee for two.

  I was a little nervous knocking on her door. I was halfway expecting her to start beating me with her shoe again. But when the door opened, she looked apologetic.

  “I’m glad to see you’ve joined the land of the living again,” she said.


  “Thanks to you.” She shrugged. “How about a donut?” I asked her, and she smiled a little.

  “Sounds good.”

  “Julia,” I said, once were sitting down, “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry too.”

  “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “I know.”

  “I only meant that it was different because you work too—maybe not for pay, but I know it’s not easy doing what you do.”

  She shrugged again. “I’m not asking for sympathy, Jon. I have a good life. Don’t get me wrong—sometimes it feels like I’m juggling with one hand tied behind my back. But I know how lucky I am to have the luxury of staying home.”

  “I swear to you, Julia, I was not going to say that word.”

  “It wasn’t you,” she said. “It was Tony.” Tony, her gay brother who lived in California. “I talked to him two days ago, and he used that word. And I was just so shocked, I hung up before I could really say anything to him. I tried to tell myself he didn’t really mean anything by it, but the more I thought about it, the more pissed off I got. And then when you started talking about it being disgraceful for somebody to not work—”

  “Julia, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “I know.”

  “Have you talked to Tony since then?”

  “No.” She shrugged. “It’s not fair,” she said, sounding sheepish.

  “I’m his biggest advocate. The rest of my family won’t even speak to him. I stand up for him, and what do I get for it? I get called names.”

  She shook her head, not looking at me. “I don’t understand. Neither one of us can help what we are, and yet for some reason, he feels that I deserve his contempt simply because I’m not like him.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said again, because I didn’t know what else to say.

  “If I were to call him a name like that for being gay, he would never forgive me.”