Back Where He Started

by Jay Quinn

  He dropped his arms but left one around my waist, keeping me close. “I’m the kind of guy who quit trying a long time ago, Chris. Heath was four years back. I quit after him. I ain’t been with anybody since. But I’ve been thinking a lot about trying again. Are you up for that?”

  I moved from the shelter of his chest and shoulder to look him in the eye. He returned my gaze without guile. “I think I want to start trying again, right now.”

  Steve grinned. “Me too.”

  Nuala raised her head and looked at us. Satisfied we were both fine, she laid her head down again with an annoyed sigh. Steve put his face in my hair and sniffed me deeply. With the hand around my waist he pulled me closer. The other searched for the hem of my T-shirt and, finding it, wound its way over the bare skin underneath to find the rise of my nipple.

  “Steve, one thing …” I said.

  He mumbled into my hair.

  I stilled his hand on my chest by placing my palm over it, on top of the thin fabric. “Steve …” I said.

  “Yep?” he asked, and let his hand slip from under my shirt.

  “Health … I mean … have you been tested?”

  Steve nodded. He took a deep breath, looked up at the ceiling, and then down at me. “Chris, I keep papers on my dogs and I keep papers on me. My last test was in December. I’m negative. If you got one big enough, I don’t mind putting a piece of latex on my dick this one time, but once I prove to you that I’m negative, don’t think it’ll happen again. I’ll show you the paper right now if you want to take me home and get it. I guess I don’t have to worry about you, right?”

  I stood and looked down at him. For once, I wasn’t in a position to be pulled or tugged at. “No. You don’t have to worry about me, I’m negative.”

  Steve reached up and took my hand. I pulled his arm until he stood up. “I guess it all starts with trust, right?” he said. He stepped past me toward the bedroom and stopped. “That’s the kind of guy I am.”

  He waited until I joined him, then together we began to make our way toward the bedroom. At the bookcase I pulled away from him long enough to start the CD over. I wanted every minute of it to play.

  In the bedroom I let him undress me. He pulled my T-shirt over my head and knelt in front of me to undo my shorts and pull them down. He left my boxer shorts untouched as he buried his face in my belly and reached upward, stroking my torso with flattened hands that found the rise of my breast and held me there, my nipples under his palms. He traced the rim of my navel with his tongue, darting it inside, filling me first there.

  He slid his hands down my sides, turning me so that my back was to him. He put his mouth against the small of my back and, rising, slid his tongue the length of my spine until he reached my neck. Holding me by the waist, he pulled me against him; the slight swell of his taut belly fit inside the sway of my back before the fullness of my ass rolled and I felt him attempt to push himself between my legs. Kissing my neck and the top of my head, he ran his hands up my sides and over my chest, then down my belly and under the elastic of my boxers. He rested his palms against my thighs and stroked under my scrotum with his thumbs until I moaned. Only then did he slide away my boxers and let them fall.

  Now naked, I turned to face him. My eyes were level with the hollow of his throat, and it was there I filled him first. I placed my hands where his neck joined his shoulders and I caressed the cords there. Then I ran my hands up into the hair at the back of his head, which I urged him to put down so I could reach his sweet, full lips and taste his tongue. Kissing him, I ran my hands over those broad shoulders once more then down his upper arms, squeezing the density of muscle, trying to get it all in my grasp. My hands finally found his, and my lips never lost his mouth.

  I let go of Steve’s hands and grasped his waist, caressing the face of it with my thumbs until, having waited long enough, I ran my hands down flat under the elastic of his boxer shorts and pulled them far enough away to ensure they’d fall straight away and reveal the man of him I’d only glimpsed behind layers of cotton and denim.

  He was wide and thick, and the head of it was nearly square, flaring at its firm chin with a ridge that promised a deeper sort of pleasure. I reached to hold the heaviness that hung below and took the measure of the heft and weight there, the dimension of its swing. I looked up to meet Steve’s eyes, expecting to see the pride and gentle mockery there, the challenge. But he looked at me sweetly, as if to say that nothing else needed to be said.

  With the weight of his scrotum in my hand I knelt and guided him to my mouth. I took him inside, lightly, teasingly enclosing the broad-headed beginning of him between my lips, and pulled until he cried out and grasped my head in his hands. I felt him fight the urge to push deeper, but he held off instead. He knelt in front of me, hiding his treasure away, and found my mouth with his own. Then he eased me back onto the bed until the center of me stood up as my own offering, which he took deep within his own mouth, swallowing me until I gasped and gripped his curls to pull him away.

  Steve grabbed my legs behind the knees, lifting and spreading them. He moved between them on his knees. Then, too soon and only spit-slicked, he pushed himself against me.

  “Look at me,” he whispered. “Look at me and don’t look away.”

  And I didn’t. He pushed hard and went inside me while I strained against torn tears to see his face as he claimed me and fucked me. He fucked me well, moving his hips while his chest stayed still. He fucked me like his ass had its own universal joint that left his dick to punish me and pleasure me with a repetition that was deep and hard, going on and on long after the music had faded from the living room.

  He fucked me until, finally, I was spent like a thirsty drunk’s last dime. Then he fucked me harder until he pulled out and came like a breached dam, all silver showers and thundering flood, over my chest and shoulders.

  Done and wet, he cradled me with my head on his shoulder and my arm on his chest. He held me to him with the length of his arm down the line of my spine.

  We slid toward the sleep of the bought and paid-for—one act so easily answering questions and sewing together two long-torn seams. We murmured together soft sounds that were only approximations of words and thoughts, but sufficed as final, finer stitching. Then we slept. Nuala eventually stole into the room and onto the bed to turn twice and sink contentedly at our feet.

  “Dr. Rivera’s office,” I said.

  “Hello Chris! I won’t keep you long, I know you have phones to answer.”

  “Hey Andrea. Is everything still on for next weekend?”

  “Sure. But I wanted to let you know David and I will be staying at the Pepper Tree. One of his buddies has a time-share there. He can’t make it for Easter, so he offered it to David and me. Since you’re going to have a full house, we took him up on it.”

  “Oh Andrea,” I said, “that’s very thoughtful of you. Susan and David will be in the guest room and Schooner and his friend Frank will have the loft. That is a full house, but I’ll miss having you and David with everyone under one roof.”

  “We won’t miss the bathroom situation,” Andrea said frankly.

  “I understand completely.”

  “Mom—”

  “Oh, so it’s Mom now is it? What’s wrong?”

  ‘Well, I just thought someone should warn you. Dad, Alicia, and the baby will be down as well. They’ve bought one of those new pastel Key West-type places on the way to Fort Macon.”

  “My God, your father’s going to go broke keeping his wives in beach houses.”

  “Is that all you’re concerned about?”

  I glanced down the hall toward Cathy’s office; she was now off the phone, and this conversation with my daughter was promising to get longer. I lowered my voice and said, “Andrea, I don’t have time to get into this right now. Your father is completely free to buy a house wherever he wants one. It’s none of my business.”

  “Mom, what about Mass? What are we all going to do—sit across two whol
e pews, one big unhappy dysfunctional family? It’s such a mockery.”

  “Andrea, there is no problem unless you decide to make one. There will certainly be more than one Mass on Sunday. And besides, I had no idea Alicia was Catholic. I assumed she worshipped handling her relatives, the snakes. Even if she is Catholic, it’s none of my business and it’s none of yours either.”

  “Mom, it’s my family. It is my business. Alicia converted, by the way.”

  I held my breath and counted to 10. “Andrea, I understand, but I also take it you’ve gotten to a point where you’ve started talking to your father again with some degree of civility. After all, you obviously know his Easter plans.”

  It was Andrea’s turn to be silent. Finally she said, “Damn you’re good. Yes, I’ve been having dinner with Dad fairly regularly. He’s been making a meaningful effort to reach out.”

  “That’s very good to hear Andrea. I’m proud of both of you. Since you’ve reached some sort of detente with him, maybe I should call to invite him and Alicia to Easter dinner.”

  “Chris, don’t you dare!” Andrea hissed.

  “So, I’m Chris again now,” I laughed. “Andrea, you can’t have it both ways unless you’re enjoying the drama. Now, I have to go.”

  “Promise me you won’t invite them over!”

  “Whatever … now, Andrea I have to go or I’m going to get in trouble. You work in a psychiatrist’s office don’t you? It’s very unprofessional for staff to drag their family woes into work.”

  “Chris, I love you, but you drive me crazy, you know that?” she said.

  “That’s a short drive, Andrea. Love you, hon. Call me when you get here. Bye.” I hung up the phone. Cathy was leaning on the half wall that separated my area from the hall and she raised her eyebrows at me questioningly. “Was I loud?” I asked. “I apologize for disturbing you.”

  “No, you weren’t loud, I was just interested. I take it that was your daughter.”

  I sighed. “Yes, my little drama queen. I told you she was an LCSW, right?”

  “Yes, I believe you did,” she said.

  “Well, she seems to be somewhat immune to her own training when it comes to her father’s and my breakup. But she’s getting adjusted, slowly but surely.”

  Cathy nodded, and smiled. “Give her some time. I think you’re handling her very well.”

  “Well, thanks for that. She’s been mine since she was three years old, so I know how she works. She’s not an easy adapter, but eventually she finds her feet and moves on.”

  Cathy left the wall to come into my area and sat on the spare chair near the copier. “Your daughter’s not what I came in to talk about,” she said.

  For a moment I panicked. I was scared she was going to give me hell because I’d gotten to the office a little late that morning. It had everything to do with not wanting to get out of bed with Steve. His 5 A.M. round two had been more lingering and erotic than the first round the night before. Then I’d insisted on making him steak and eggs. By the time we were showered and dressed and out the door, I was late. It was nothing too bad, just under an hour, and I had called Cathy on her cell phone to let her know. “I’m sorry about this morning …” I began.

  Cathy gave a dismissive flick of her hand and grinned. “So tell me, I want all the details!”

  “What?” I said, confused.

  “Don’t what me! I drove past your house on the way home last night, and there he was”—she said, pointing at Steve’s photo— “standing in a pair of boxer shorts and nothing else up on your deck. The car behind me almost slammed into my back end, I braked so hard to get a look.”

  Relieved, I leaned back in a long stretch as far as my office chair would carry me. I lifted my feet off the floor, extended my legs until my toes pointed, and touched the wall behind me with my back- stretched arms. I held the stretch until I shuddered and then sat back upright, giving Cathy the Cheshire cat’s grin.

  Cathy giggled, low from the back of her throat. “That good, huh?” she said.

  Just then, Tony appeared with his departing client and asked for the next client’s file. I straightened up as best I could and told him he’d had a cancellation. He lingered while I got busy scheduling the departing client’s next appointment, bantering with her personally, consulting the calendar for a date two months hence, and filling out her appointment card. After she said her good-byes and left through the reception area, Tony waited for the outside door to close and asked, “What’s got you two out here giggling?”

  “Let’s just say Chris’s serotonin and dopamine levels are exaggerated this morning,” Cathy replied.

  “Yeah, what she said,” I added.

  Tony looked at me and grinned. “Oh! So that’s why you were late this morning. Good for you. There’s nothing like a little intimacy first thing in the A.M. to keep you firing on all cylinders. I take it your marlin-killer is back in port.”

  I smiled ruefully. “So you’ve seen the photo. Did you read what’s on the back?”

  Tony shook his head. “There are limits—you never shared the back of the photo.”

  I took Steve’s photo from the wall and handed it to Tony so he could read Steve’s regret over killing the great fish for sport.

  He read the back and handed it to Cathy. “Is it killing the marlin he regrets, or just killing the marlin for ‘asshole rich people,’ that’s what I don’t get.”

  I explained that Steve preferred to release the fish back into the ocean unless the marlin had to be returned to dock in order to qualify for prize consideration in a tournament. Or if the guy paying for the boat demanded a trophy for his den. Though it paid well, Steve still considered commercial sportfishing a brutal, sorry business, all in all.

  “I guess he’s a true hunter, then,” Tony said. “I’ve not met a good one that didn’t have a great deal of respect—even affection— for what he ‘took,’ as they say. Still, it’s not something I could do with any pride.”

  “If it helps any, Tony, I feel the same way,” I said. “But he is who he is and I love him.”

  Cathy looked at me and her mouth opened. She glanced at Tony and returned her open-mouth gaze to me. “What did I just hear you say?” she asked.

  My own mouth dropped open as what I said hit me. “I guess I just said I loved him. Oh my God.”

  “ ‘Goddamn’ is more likely,” Tony said. “You two are getting too Lifetime Television for me. Do you have my 2 o’clock file for me? I’m going back into my safe, manly-but-trophyless office.”

  Cathy laughed as I took the file off the top of the waiting pile on my desk, checked the name against the appointment calendar, and handed it to Tony.

  He shook his head and walked away. When he was out of earshot, Cathy looked down at the photo of Steve once more and handed it back to me. “Was it really that good?”

  I carefully stuck Steve’s photo back to the wall. I thought, I better get a frame for it now. “It was epic … hypnotic …” I sighed contentedly. “Druglike.”

  Cathy upped the ante. “Two Valium and a glass of scotch after a long day-good?”

  I looked anxiously down the hall toward the Tony’s inner sanctum and said sotto voce: “An ‘OxyContin, laying in the sun, and sipping a bottle of Prosecco through a straw’ good.”

  Cathy stood, placed a hand to her aching back, and stretched her outsize belly. “ ‘Love’ hell. Chris, you’re done for … gone. Why don’t you take off the rest of the day and go get you another hit off that beautiful beast of a man.” She put both hands under the swell of her pregnancy. “Enjoy it for me.”

  “I can’t, girl. He’s got stuff to do. Besides, I’m going to his place for dinner tonight. He’s got Nuala, who’s visiting with her mama and daddy dog and a few random brothers he’s still got. He’s making me dinner. Homemade, real Italian.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Cathy said. “He’s Italian, he’s a dog lover, and he cooks too?”

  “Well, he’s half Italian, but it’s all�
�every inch—right where it counts.”

  “I hate you, bitch. Get back to work.” With that, she gave me a wink and went back into her office.

  In my growing awareness of light, I felt Steve stir and tense around me, then half-rise off me. Nuala barked and, in her rush off the bed, she scratched my ankle with her claws. I was trying to remember where I was. The night had started at Steve’s but ended—drunkenly and in a fog of pleasure—in my own bed.

  “Hey Mom!” Schooner yelled from the front of the house.

  “What the fuck?” Steve growled. He swung off the bed and stood naked, half awake and ready for a fight.

  “It’s my son,” I groaned and pulled my own naked self out of bed and looked for something to put on. Steve’s boxers, which were still in his board shorts, were on my side of the bed. I plucked them out and tossed the bathing suit to him. “Hang on a minute Schooner!” I yelled. I pulled Steve’s boxers on and gave him a smile. “He’s got a key. I didn’t know he was coming. You can either come on out and meet him or go back to sleep. It’s only just after 6.”

  Steve looked at me, shook his head, then laughed. “Is this boxer shorts boy?”

  “Yep. He’s my baby and he’s a trip, I warn you.”

  “Mom, where’s this dog’s food?” Schooner yelled from the front of the house.

  “Mom?” Steve asked as he stepped into his bathing suit.

  “I’ve had him since he was only a few months old,” I said. “I’m the only mom he’s ever known. I can’t break him of the habit of calling me that. I know it’s weird, but just try to deal with it, okay?”

  Steve laced the front of his board shorts and gave me a happy grin. “C’mon then, Mom. We might as well face the music. I have to leave pretty soon to get my dogs fed.”

  I met him at the bedroom door and gave him a quick kiss. Together we walked down the hall and found Schooner in the kitchen giving an ecstatic Nuala a belly rub. Confronted with two sets of legs, Schooner stood and regarded Steve warily. “Who the hell are you?”