Shotgun

by Marie Sexton

  I groaned. “Do we have to?”

  “Come on, Dad. Don’t be a wuss.”

  “Do they at least have cows or ponies this year?”

  Naomi laughed and turned to Lamar. “Dad’s afraid of goats.”

  “I am not!”

  “Are too.”

  Lamar looked at me, his eyebrows up in surprise. “Is she serious?”

  “They have creepy eyes,” I exclaimed, trying to justify it. “Their pupils go the wrong way.”

  “Dad saw a movie once where the bad guys left this man tied up in a pen full of goats, and the goats ate his face, so now Dad’s afraid of them.”

  There wasn’t much point in denying it now. Not when Naomi was so anxious to air my irrational neuroses. “I wouldn’t exactly say I’m afraid of them,” I said in a desperate attempt to maintain some shred of manhood. “It’s just that I find them… disconcerting.”

  “Disconcerting?” he said with obvious amusement.

  “Yeah. They’re like piranha, but with fur.”

  Naomi threw Lamar an “I told you so” look and ran ahead to the petting zoo gate. She was knee-deep in potential face-eaters by the time Lamar and I leaned our elbows on the fence to watch. “She’s too old for Legos, but give her a pen full of farm animals, and she’s instantly a kid again.”

  “I can’t blame her,” Lamar said. “Who doesn’t love a petting zoo? I’d be in there too, if I could.”

  “Why can’t you?”

  He shook his head. “It’d be silly.”

  “You think you’re the first dad who’s come in?” the lady working the gate said. “We get parents in here all the time.”

  Lamar blinked at her, obviously trying to decide whether or not to correct her assumption, but the lady didn’t give him a chance. “Go ahead,” she said with a smile, gesturing into the pen.

  Lamar turned to me, as if seeking permission. “Hey, it’s your face,” I told him. “But if they attack, you’re on your own.”

  He laughed and went in.

  “Grab some of the food, Mr. Franklin,” Naomi called out as he entered. “You can distract the goats so I can go pet that huge pig in the corner.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Lamar replied as he waded through a sea of bleating horror.

  “How about you?” the woman at the gate asked me.

  I eyed the goats swarming around Naomi and Lamar, big eyes rolling wildly in their heads, knocking each other over in their mad scramble to get more food. A couple seemed to be attempting to use each other as a ladder. One climbed onto a bench and began gnawing Naomi’s purse. I suppressed a shudder and shook my head. “I’ll take the pictures.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  I stood outside the gate, watching the two of them. They were perfectly natural together—Lamar with his stylishly ruffled, dark blond hair, and Naomi with her long black ponytail and bright blue eyebrows. A hesitant voice in the back of my confused brain prodded me self-righteously, telling me it could be like this all the time.

  Yes, I told it. But only as long as “like this” meant Lamar and I were to be casual friends. Accepting him as a lover felt more threatening than ever. After all, it was one thing for him and Naomi to pet murderous farm animals together. It was quite another to share each other’s personal lives. To wake up in the same house and face each other over the breakfast table, with Naomi fully aware of Lamar having been in my bed. To come home from school and have the student/teacher relationship trumped by something far more personal.

  They eventually tired of the petting zoo, and we made our way to the corn maze. The maze was different each year, designed to make a picture when seen from the air. It covered more than fifteen acres and promised more than two miles of pathways designed to confuse and confound. The map they offered at the beginning was of little help, although there were hints and clues along the way if you chose to use them.

  “Bet I can beat you through,” Naomi challenged.

  “Don’t you want to work it together?” I asked, trying to hide my disappointment. She’d never wanted to split up before. She’d always wanted to be by side.

  “I’m old enough to do it myself. You go right, and I’ll go left. Got it?”

  “What if you get lost?”

  “It’s a maze, Dad. I’m supposed to get lost.”

  “But what if you get really lost and can’t find your way out?”

  She rolled her eyes. In her defense, it was the first time all day. “I have this,” she said in exasperation, waving the map of the maze at me. “And I have my phone. I can call you. Plus, they have a tip line you can text if you get stuck. But I won’t need to. The maze isn’t hard.”

  I was about to protest again when Lamar spoke up. “Do we need to give you a head start?”

  There was no sincerity in his voice. It was a blatant, playful challenge to her statement of independence. She tossed her head back and put her hands on her hips. “Maybe I should give you one!”

  “Maybe you should.”

  “Fine. One minute. Go.”

  “But—” I started to say to them both, but Lamar grabbed my elbow and steered me toward the entrance.

  “You heard her. One minute. Let’s go.”

  “I don’t like this,” I told him as we entered. “What if something happens to her?”

  He glanced sideways at me, clearly trying not to laugh. “What could possibly happen?”

  “I don’t know! There are all kinds of nutballs around. What if somebody tries to take her?”

  “I suspect she’ll scream loud enough to bring every adult in the county running.”

  “What if she can’t find her way out of the maze?”

  “Then she’ll call you, like she said. Or she’ll text the helpline.”

  “What if she can’t get a signal?”

  “We’re not the only ones in the maze,” he said. “She’ll find somebody to follow.”

  He was right, of course. There were plenty of other people in the maze—families working together, but plenty of kids too, either alone or in pairs. I knew I was being unreasonable, but she was my little girl. Taking care of her and keeping her safe was my job.

  “I can’t help but worry,” I said at last, feeling defeated.

  “I know,” he said, moving closer so our arms brushed as we walked slowly through the row of hedges, hardly bothering to pay attention to where we were going. “I don’t know what it’s like to be a dad, but I deal with thirteen-year-olds every single day. Naomi’s smart, and you’ve raised her to be independent and make her own decisions.”

  “I have?”

  He laughed. “You have.” And then, seeing my obvious confusion, he went on. “Like letting her come and go on her own. Letting her decide whether to stay with you or with Elena. Stuff like that. Most parents make those kinds of decisions for their kids. You’ve given her a lot of leeway, but now that she’s pushing the boundaries, you want to reel her back in. But that’ll only cause more trouble for you later. Believe me.”

  I suspected he was right, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. “Sometimes I feel like she should still be toddling along in squeaky shoes with lollipop juice running down her chin.”

  “But she isn’t. For what it’s worth, I think it’s good to let her assert her independence, especially in a relatively safe environment like this one.” He stopped short, and I followed suit. He looked around at the unending walls of corn. We’d turned several corners without paying attention and now seemed to be in a relatively deserted corridor. “Speaking of safe environments,” he said, “do you have any idea how to get us out of here?”

  I laughed. “Good thing she gave us a head start.”

  NINETY MINUTES later, Lamar and I emerged from the corn maze to find Naomi waiting for us, looking triumphant.

  “I made it out fifteen minutes ago!” she announced.

  “Did you have to send up red sparks with your wand?” Lamar asked.

  She laughed. “You wish!”

  We s
pent the next hour tromping through the pumpkin patch and filling a wagon with the ugly ducklings of the pumpkin world. Naomi never wanted the perfect ones and rejected every one Lamar showed her. She wanted the lumpy ones. The spotted ones. The misshapen ones. The ones that had been passed by again and again.

  “Why take that one?” she asked when Lamar held up a fat, round pumpkin.

  “Because it’s perfect.”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “Which means he won’t have any problem finding somebody to take him home,” she said. “But this one”—she pointed at one that looked more like a butternut squash than a pumpkin—“This one needs to be rescued.”

  Lamar turned to me, his eyebrows up in a silent question. “You’ll never win,” I told him. “You can buy the pretty one, but she’ll only make you feel guilty about it later.”

  We drove home with eight lumpy, spotty, far-from-round pumpkins. I ordered a pizza while Naomi cut open paper grocery sacks and spread them across the kitchen floor. Then we all sat cross-legged, scooping pumpkin innards. Naomi separated the seeds from the goop. She’d soak them in salt water, then roast them carefully, but never eat a single one. I’d quietly throw them away sometime around Christmas.

  “I think I’ll give this guy one great big eye, right in the center of this little crater. What you do think?” she asked Lamar.

  “Sounds hideous,” he said, much to her delight.

  Before I knew it, they were laughing like little kids and throwing handfuls of pumpkin goop across the room at each other. I watched them quietly, feeling set apart from their simple, innocent laughter. They moved easily together. There was a feeling of formalness between them, but they also managed to be playful. Naomi called Lamar “Mr. Franklin,” rather than resorting to his first name, and it was easy to see why Lamar made such a good teacher. He never spoke down to her, but he commanded a certain amount of casual respect, mostly by mirroring that respect back at her. I ached at the sight of them, laughing and playing together as if they’d known each other their whole lives. I thought back to my time with Lamar in the corn maze. The sun had reflected off his hair, shining almost the exact color of the dried cornstalks surrounding us. Other couples had passed us, many of them holding hands, and I’d longed for that innocent gesture of companionship, even as my heart had revolted at the idea of being seen holding hands with another man. Now that same terrible desire welled up in me.

  Lamar belonged here.

  Lamar couldn’t stay.

  We lined Naomi’s grotesque creations up on the front porch. We lit them all and stood back to admire them.

  “Aren’t they fantastic?” Naomi asked.

  “They really are,” Lamar told her, and I didn’t think he was lying.

  “And we can use them later to make pumpkin pie.” She turned to Lamar. “You’re coming for Thanksgiving, right?”

  He turned to her and then to me, but with only the light of the jack-o-lanterns, his expression was hard to read. “I don’t know.”

  “We haven’t really decided what we’re doing for Thanksgiving yet,” I said, trying to glare Naomi into silence.

  She grinned at me. “We’re having it here,” she said defiantly.

  “But the grandparents—”

  “To hell with them.”

  “Naomi,” I scolded. “Don’t talk like that.”

  “Well, you know it’ll be better if we do it my way.”

  Lamar seemed to sense he’d been thrust into the middle of an ongoing family discussion. He turned to the pumpkins and made a point of wandering a few steps away, ostensibly to get a broader view of the pumpkins’ leering faces.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” I told Naomi, but I imagined cooking next to Lamar on Thanksgiving Day. I couldn’t deny the way the thought warmed my heart. It was so perfectly symbolic of my deepest, most profound wish: to openly share my life with him. To have him sitting opposite me at the dining room table every single night, not just playing with Legos but eating meals and helping Naomi with her homework.

  But it couldn’t ever happen. The knowledge brought a lump to my throat.

  At the end of the evening, he climbed into the passenger seat of my car, and I drove him home, my heart full and heavy.

  “I had fun today,” he said. “Thank you for inviting me.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said, fighting to keep my voice light, trying my best not to let my desperation and confusion alter my tone. “Although I don’t actually get the credit. It was Naomi’s idea.”

  “I’ll thank her tomorrow, then.” He glanced at me, and I knew he sensed something was wrong. “What is it?” he prodded.

  “I’m just….” So crazy in love with you, I can’t see straight. So mad, because I can’t tell you the truth. I floundered for a simple answer. What I came up with was “I’m really glad you came with us.”

  I wanted to sound casual, but I failed miserably. I felt as if every beat of my heart had been hammered into that one simple sentence. I wanted to take it back and hide the truth of it, deny its power and somehow kill the horrible, insatiable hunger I felt for his presence. I felt as though I’d given voice to the terrible knowledge that I was incomplete without him. That I’d given power to the empty shadow of him that had tailed me for days when we’d been apart.

  “Lamar,” I said, although I didn’t know what I was going to say next. My throat felt tight, my stomach too light, my hands too shaky.

  He put his hand on my thigh, and I had to force myself to breathe.

  “I know,” he said.

  We didn’t speak. It was all I could do to get us to his house. Keep my unsteady hands moving on the steering wheel, and push the brake and the gas at the appropriate times. I pulled up to the end of his sidewalk, put the car in park, and killed the engine. I could barely breathe as I turned to him. I could barely hold myself in check. He watched me, his blue eyes wide in the darkness of my car. A pumpkin seed adorned his hair. I leaned forward. I closed my fingers around it and pulled it away, feeling as though time was moving too fast, but I was moving far too slow.

  “Dom?” he said quietly. “Are you—”

  “Shh,” I said. I hooked my hand behind his neck and pulled him toward me.

  I only meant to kiss him. Not even a passionate kiss. I only wanted to feel his lips against mine. To taste him, if I could. Breathe his air. But then he put his arms around my neck, his fingers into my hair, and I lost control. Suddenly we were seventeen again, grasping each other breathlessly, pulling at one another, straining toward each other across a narrow front seat that had served us well in the past but which now felt way too cramped. I yanked his jacket off, desperate to feel his thin body in my arms. I tried to push him back against the car door, to move on top of him, but came up short against the gearshift.

  “Oh my God,” Lamar gasped, “how did we ever make this work?”

  I laughed. “I was just wondering the same thing.”

  He pulled away and looked hopefully into my eyes. “Come inside?”

  I hesitated, torn between what I wanted and what I felt I should do. But God, I wanted him. Not sex, necessarily, but I wanted to make out like we were seventeen again. I wanted to lose myself in his willingness. To pretend for a few more minutes that we were a possibility.

  Kissing wouldn’t hurt anybody, I reasoned, and better in his house than out here in the car where anybody could see. “Clothes stay on?” I asked.

  He grinned, biting his lip. He sounded like a true Southerner when he drawled, “If that’s what it takes.”

  Once I’d made up my mind, I couldn’t wait to get started. I had a hard time keeping my hands to myself as I followed him up the sidewalk. I bounced impatiently on my feet as he fumbled with his keys. The door finally swung open, and I didn’t waste a moment.

  In my defense, Lamar was in as much of a hurry as I. He grabbed my jacket and pulled me in. I kicked the door shut, pushed him up against the wall so hard his breath rushed out of him in surprise, and I kissed him.r />
  It was glorious. The way he tasted and the way he felt in my arms. The way his labored breathing matched mine as we sank into each other. He pushed my jacket off my shoulders, and I let it fall to the floor. I half hoped he’d undo my shirt next. He didn’t—he was following my rule—but he slid his hand underneath, up my bare stomach, causing me to moan against his lips.

  “I think that’s cheating,” I murmured.

  “Let’s call it a loophole.”

  And I couldn’t say no. It felt too good. I wanted him to touch me more than I’d ever wanted anything else. I was lost in him, every nerve ending on fire, every desire I’d ever had focused on him. He was sweet and willing and aggressive and utterly unafraid. Everything I’d loved about him fifteen years ago, only it was sexier now than it had ever been. I concentrated on his lips, his neck, his ass, which I grabbed and squeezed. He gasped, leaning into me, and I wrapped my hands around his waist and lifted. He came willingly. He wrapped his legs around my hips and for a second or a minute or an hour, I held him there, pinned against the wall, kissing him with new fervor. But holding him up limited use of my hands. It made it impossible for me to explore him properly.

  I moved him two feet to my right, onto a small bureau next to the door, knocking unopened mail all over the floor in my haste. Now I could touch him while we kissed. I ran my hands up his sides, underneath his shirt, brushing my fingers over his soft flesh. I found his nipples, hard against my thumb, and flicked them, causing him to whimper. He tightened his legs around me, and we kissed harder, frantically grinding our groins together.

  And then I felt his hands at my fly. He tore open the buttons on my pants. When I glanced down, I realized his jeans were already undone, his erection straining against the fabric of his briefs.

  “No.”

  “Yes,” he prompted, kissing me harder. “Say yes.”

  And although I wanted to pull away, I couldn’t do it. I was already anticipating the way it would feel. The absolute relief that would come when I surrendered to him. I nearly came when his hand closed around me. “No,” I said again, but I lacked conviction. I lacked the ability to even stop kissing him. To stop my hips from thrusting madly as he stroked me. To stop myself from tugging at his pants, pulling them lower on his hips so I could expose him the way he’d exposed me. I couldn’t stop staring at his cock, thick and pale and gorgeous as it had ever been. The sight of it made my mouth water, but before I could even think to disentangle myself, he changed his grip. He moved so our lengths were parallel and wrapped one fist around them both. I moaned at the sight of our erections touching, of our heads sliding in unison through his fingers, at the sheer amazement of how fucking good it felt.